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Article: National endowment for administrators; the NEA's real problem isn't crucifixes in urine - it's bureaucrats in Dubuque. (National Endowment for the Arts)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- June 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Arts Endowment has never called a great artist into being," declares National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) chairman John Frohnmayer in the NEA's glossy 1989 annual report. It seems an odd and ambiguous declaration for the chairman of the nation's leading arts agency to make-one that clearly resonated with the wrong faction during the NEA debate of 89 and '90. Thousands of cranky constituents wrote Congress protesting that their tax dollars had gone to support artists they had never heard of, but were pretty sure they disliked: names like Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Shawn Eichman, Annie Sprinkle. Not a Titian or a Faulkner in this crowd, ...