Art Not for Politicians’ Sake

From its beginning last year, the controversy created by Sen. Jesse Helms’ attack on the National Endowment for the Arts has had very little to do with aesthetics and a great deal to do with politics.

No one ever contested the notion that the endowment ought to consider the intention, content and context of the projects proposed by artists and arts organizations seeking federal financial support. The real question was--and is--will that consideration be undertaken by artists and arts professionals acting according to the criteria of aesthetic excellence or will it be undertaken by politicians acting according to political standards? The former approach is the one the NEA always has employed; imposition of the latter is what many suspected Helms really had in mind when he assailed federal grants to a pair of controversial photography exhibits.

Such suspicions now seem well-founded. As Times writer Allan Parachini reported Monday, the conservative North Carolina Republican has quietly attempted to inject himself directly into the endowment’s deliberations. In four letters sent to NEA officials late last year, Helms demanded unusually detailed information on grants made to eight specific arts organizations and nine individual artists, presumably because they presented or produced work dealing with AIDS or erotic subjects. The senator also solicited a grant for an art education project in his state, and urged NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer to hire a Helms supporter as the endowment’s chief lawyer.

Frohnmayer must not give in to this sort of unwholesome political meddling. He must hold to the standard he laid down last week in remarks to NEA employees: “All points of view expressed in excellent art should be encouraged and supported, and (federal) grants should not be proscribed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” When artists look to the federal government, they ought to see the outstretched hand of a fair-minded benefactor and not the grim face of the Grand Inquisitor.