NEA Chief Defends Agency Against Critics in Congress : Arts: Jane Alexander attacks campaign to cut funds. She says endowment projects have helped make culture accessible to all.

The head of the National Endowment for the Arts launched a spirited defense of her agency Friday against congressional critics who consider it elitist and an unnecessary frill supported by federal dollars.

Addressing the fifth annual conference of the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, Jane Alexander, who chairs the NEA, asked: “Is it elitist to give a grant to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for the Matisse exhibition--a show that was seen by nearly 1 million people and included a special educational program for parents and children?”

Alexander ticked off a list of other fine arts projects supported by NEA around the country, contending that many have brought exposure to the arts to low-income families in inner cities and rural areas.

“Go to the Appalachians, to Harlem, to tribal villages . . . and see the work we do there. Meet the elite,” she said sarcastically, drawing applause from 1,600 arts educators and education policy-makers at the conference.

“Art is not about putting on a tuxedo or a fancy dress,” Alexander said. “Art is everywhere in our daily lives. There’s nothing elitist about it.”

Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee who has long championed funding for the arts and education, told conferees that he believes some congressional critics simply do not appreciate the fine arts.

He said that a stranger once told Pablo Picasso: “I don’t understand your art.” He quoted Picasso’s reply: “Madam, I don’t understand Chinese but the Chinese do.”

Alexander acknowledged that the NEA has funded some controversial and experimental arts projects that have come under attack by conservatives. However, she compared this funding to federal support for scientific research on the theory that “we take the chance that those scientists just might succeed.”

“But we fund so much more than that,” she said. “As part of our original mandate from Congress in 1965, the endowment is required to fund projects which make the arts more accessible to all--through public television, through the classroom, through investing in communities all across the country.”

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The controversial projects amount to “a handful . . . out of over 100,000 grants over 30 years,” she said. “The sheer volume of work supported by the endowment is bound to contain something that just about everybody could hate!”

She added that “our folk arts program keeps alive such traditions as Native American dance, Irish fiddling, Afro-Cuban drumming, Laotian weaving, gospel singing, storytelling, pottery making and much, much more.”

Considering what the agency has accomplished, expenditures have been relatively minor, she said. The NEA’s fiscal year 1995 budget of $167 million is less than 0.02% of 1% of federal spending, which she described as “a pittance” compared to the entire budget.

However, because of the stated opposition of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other Republicans who want to dismantle the agency or make major cuts in its programs, “we are on the precipice,” she concluded. “What’s at stake here is 30 years work of building the infrastructure for the arts, getting culture into our communities.”

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The history of government support for the arts under Republican rule has been grim, she said. In 1980, the last year of the Jimmy Carter Administration, the federal government spent 28% of its budget on human resources and 23% on defense, but by 1988--the end of the Ronald Reagan Administration--”those numbers had reversed, with 28% going to defense and only 22% to human resources,” she said.

“The arts have been the first to suffer along with other human resources,” Alexander declared. “I feel that we have paid more than our fair share over the years and the time has come to hold the line on further cuts.”

Noting that some opponents believe the arts were doing well before the endowment was created, Alexander said: “Well, it’s not true that the arts were doing fine. People in smaller cities, rural areas and other underserved communities just didn’t have the same access to the arts as they do now.”

She added that “even major institutions in big cities were feeling the squeeze of rising production costs” before NEA was created.