The End of the NEA

TWO YEARS AGO, in April 1989, the destruction of the National Endowment for the Arts began. It all started with a letter from the American Family Foundation of Tupelo, Mississippi, complaining to the members of the National Council on the Arts about a grant made by a beneficiary of a state arts agency, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, in support of a gross offense to the Christian religion. It seems an artist named Serrano had filled a jar with urine, placed in it a plastic statue of Christ on the Cross, and called the result art. For that he got around $20,000 in taxpayer funds. Alone among Council members, I replied to Tupelo, saying, ‘You’re right, we goofed, and I personally apologize.” Not only did I certainly mean it, but it had always been the standard reply to a valid complaint, one that closed off needless controversy.

But the way of wisdom was not to be followed. And therein lies the story of how a federal agency made itself a national joke.

JN

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Jacob Neusner

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TWO YEARS AGO, in April 1989, the destruction of the National Endowment for the Arts began. It all started with a letter from the American Family Foundation of Tupelo, Mississippi, complaining to the members of the National Council on the Arts about a grant made by a beneficiary of a state arts agency, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, in support of a gross offense to the Christian religion. It seems an artist named Serrano had filled a jar with urine, placed in it a plastic statue of Christ on the Cross, and called the result art. For that he got around $20,000 in taxpayer funds. Alone among Council members, I replied to Tupelo, saying, ‘You’re right, we goofed, and I personally apologize.” Not only did I certainly mean it, but it had always been the standard reply to a valid complaint, one that closed off needless controversy.

But the way of wisdom was not to be followed. And therein lies the story of how a federal agency made itself a national joke.