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What has the NEA done for you recently?

"The Corn Parade," 1941, by Orr C. Fisher, in the Mount Ayr, Iowa, post office, has nothing to do with the NEA.

ā€œThe Corn Parade,ā€ 1941, by Orr C. Fisher, Mount Ayr, Iowa. The NEA had nothing to do with this art.
People expect me to be angry about proposed cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), so my inbox has been flooded with comments about it.
ā€œWhat has the NEA actually done for you recently?ā€ Iā€™ve asked in response.
ā€œWell, I like their murals in the post offices,ā€ answered more than one correspondent.
ā€œThat was the WPA,ā€ I answered, ā€œAnd you should know that.ā€
My first job, in the late 1970s, was in a museum. The greater part of my working career has been spent either as a self-employed artist or working for non-profits in arts-related fields. In the trenches, far from Carnegie Hall, the NEA is absolutely irrelevant.
In 2012, the NEA published How the US Funds the Arts, intended in part to demonstrate how backwards we are compared to other nations. For performing art groups, only 1.2% of revenues came from the Federal government. And performing art groups, by their cooperative nature, are more likely to need crowdsourcing of some kind than are visual artists.
"Ken and Tyler," 1985, by Robert Mapplethorpe, is NOT the piece that caused an outcry after being purchased by the NEA.   That was his self-portrait with a bullwhip, and you can look it up yourself.

ā€œKen and Tyler,ā€ 1985, by Robert Mapplethorpe, is NOT the piece that caused an outcry after being purchased with support by the NEA. You can look that up yourself.
The problem with the NEA giving $30,000 to the Institute of Contemporary Photography to buy violent and homoerotic images by Robert Mapplethorpe wasnā€™t just the content; it was that Mapplethorpe was already a successful artist. That money didnā€™t go toward making new art; it went to collecting the work of a recently-dead artist, which was really about investment, not about developing new art.
Giving Andres Serrano a $15,000 award for Piss Christ not only offended the taxpayers; it set in stone the idea that we should have rules about paying for the stuff. This, falsely labelled ā€˜censorshipā€™, paradoxically gave offensive art more power than it ought to have had. Itā€™s now thirty years later and weā€™re still dealing with the flashback.
Government bureaucracies are slow-moving ships, whereas artists are generally light skiffs moving in the breeze. For example, the NEA frequently makes individual music grants to support ā€œartistic achievement, significant impact, and continuing contributions to the development and performance of jazz.ā€ Now, jazz is nice, but itā€™s hardly cutting-edge. Cutting edge is being done by teenagers in their parentsā€™ basements.
Immersion (Piss Christ), 1987, Andres Serrano, caused a backlash about NEA arts sponsorship.

Immersion (Piss Christ), 1987, Andres Serrano, caused a backlash about NEA arts sponsorship.
And thatā€™s my real beef with the NEA. It isnā€™t there to fund new art; itā€™s there to prop up art that appeals to the chattering classes.
Artnet, which tracks market prices, makes an annual list of the most expensive living artists. Consulting this list will give you an idea of what the real tastemakers in the world buy.
Meanwhile, the masses stubbornly insist on buying music, movies and paintings that reflect their ā€˜pedestrianā€™ taste. Mock it if you must, but our pop culture is a vibrant scene thatā€™s been aspired to and copied worldwide for more than a century.
Want a copy of Robert Mapplethorpeā€™s Self Portrait with a Whip (1978)?  Iā€™m not going to stop you, but you can pay for it yourself. Want a nice painting of a lighthouse? Iā€™m not going to stop you, but you can pay for it yourself.

Painting with blood and guts

Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant is a beautiful, difficult work that would not have been possible before the modern era.
One of my children works with severely handicapped adults. His duties include stopping clients from smearing feces on the walls. These non-verbal, intellectually-broken adults share a means of communication with some of the more rarified intellects in the art world.
From left: Lucas, 2001, by Marc Quinn, sculpted of human placenta and umbilical cord. Self, 1991, by Marc Quinn, sculpted from the artistā€™s own frozen blood.
Last night my kids and I were discussing the worst trends in millennial art. We came up with the following list:

Ā·         Bodily fluids and excretions
Ā·         Abortions
Ā·         Nail clippings
Ā·         Placental anything
Ā·         Tumors
Ā·         Body parts
Ā·         Things in formaldehyde
What struck me was how self-referential this art is. They arenā€™t just Vagina Monologues, theyā€™re My Vagina Monologues. Itā€™s not just a bullwhip in an anus; itā€™s a bullwhip in Robert Mapplethorpeā€™s own anus. Itā€™s not just art about abortion, itā€™s a project where Aliza Shvarts impregnates herself and then induces as many abortions as possible.
Piss Christ, 1987, by Andres Serrano, outraged the American public because it received public funding. It seems almost quaint in comparison with more contemporary bodily fluid art, much of which offends even my sensibilities and can’t be posted here.
This is the final step in Cartesian dualism: when you get to the point of ultimately rejecting the non-material, all youā€™re left with is your own body fluids. Can such art have any lasting meaning or value? Iā€™m afraid it can; if we are the age of self-centered nihilism, such art perfectly represents us.
This is not to say that modern sensibilities cannot inform art beautifully. Alison Lapper Pregnantis a beautiful, difficult work that would not have been possible before the modern era, when our ideas of disability have undergone such a profound shift. But even this is a one-off in the oeuvre of its creator, Marc Quinn. He diddles endlessly with a work called ā€œSelf,ā€ which is a frozen sculpture of his own head made from 4.5 liters of his own blood, and has been known to sculpt in feces.
But some of us are repulsed by this, which tells us that nihilism hasnā€™t completely triumphed. To counter it, we should ask ourselves why we are not nihilistsā€”and then paint the answer.

Let me know if youā€™re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!