In Tuesday’s (5/23) Denver Post, John Wenzel writes, “The National Endowment for the Arts, never far from controversy since its creation in 1965, was consumed by a tornado of charged rhetoric in the late 1980s and early ‘90s as conservative leaders attacked the controversial work of artists it funded. … And the most lasting bit of fallout: Congress canceled NEA funding for individual artists. … Current NEA chairman Rocco Landesman, a no-nonsense former Broadway producer, has openly floated the notion of reinstating those individual artist fellowships. The issue, he says with certainty, is not dead. … Despite the still-healing wounds of previous battles in the culture wars, leading arts administrators and thinkers around the country are talking about it too, emboldened by a relatively robust NEA budget (roughly $160 million annually under President Barack Obama) and the passage of time.”
Posted May 25, 2010
