Forwarded from the Cultural Policy Listserv:

Commentary magazine, January 2008

Michael J. Lewis reflects on the past and possible future of the National Endowment for the Arts. "In brief, the NEA has withered in a matter of decades from a self-styled instrument of world peace to a cautious dispenser of largesse whose one inflexible principle is that no grant must ever redound to the administration’s embarrassment. Whether it can regain its early ambition—or whether it should try to—is an open question." Rather than fund contemporary artists again, Lewis suggests that NEA might do better to "steward America’s artistic patrimony by supporting museums, exhibitions, and performances of works validated by the cumulative consensus of time."

After the Art Wars:

   

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