Cultural Policy

Ø What is “cultural policy”?

1) Cultural policies are most often made by governments, from school boards to Congress and the White House, but also many other institutions in the private sector, from corporations to community organizations. Policies provide guideposts for those making decisions and taking actions which affect cultural life (Webster’s World of Cultural Policy)[AC1] .

2) Those policies which have a bearing on the conduct of those institutions and organizations which make up the cultural sector[AC2] (Bennett).”

Governments can act in many ways to set and influence cultural policy, including funding, evaluating and censoring art.

Ø New Deal (Roosevelt)

s Context: The Great Depression

- First wave: relief and recovery (1930 – 35)

- Second wave: economic reform (“second New Deal” welfare state: 1935 – on)

s New Deal Art

- Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) “Federal One”

» Federal Art Project

» Federal Music Project

» Federal Theater Project

» Federal Writers Project

» Historical Records Survey

- Farm Security Administration (formerly the “Resettlement Administration”)

» Dorothea Lange (photographer)

» Walker Evans (photographer)

James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1939).

Ø National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

s Origins

1. Established in 1965

2. First Federal arts program since the 1940s

3. Different economic conditions (prosperity)

4. Different social conditions (more college grads -- GI bill)

5. Different international situation (the Cold War)

6. The emphasis on math and science in the schools (because of the Cold War)

7. The tradition of private funding for the arts (Rockefeller and Ford Foundations)

8. The rise of the Kennedy era: Jacqueline Kennedy and cosmopolitanism

9. The rise of the New York art scene -- the U.S. emerges as a cultural force

s NEA v. Finley (U.S. Supreme Court, June 25, 1998)

- Principle determination:

The NEA’s director is not in violation of the 1^st Amendment in enforcing “general standards of decency.”

- NEA controversy

The NEA controversy (late 1980s, early 1990s) – centered on the following artists:

» Mapplethorpe – “X Portfolio”

» Serrrano – “Piss Christ”

» The NEA four:

1. Karen Finley

2. Holly Hughes

3. Tim Miller

4. John Fleck

Ø Brooklyn Art Museum (1999)

- Chris Ofili

Painting: “The Holy Virgin Mary”