John Brademas

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a near-unanimous ruling that seemed to end a bitter chapter in the collision of art and politics. In upholding a 1990 law requiring the National Endowment for the Arts to apply a “general standard of decency and respect” when making grants, the court handed a victory to conservatives. Led by North Carolina Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, the conservatives were outraged by NEA grants to artists whose work they found obscene. Helms decried the work of artists such as the late Robert Mapplethorpe, a photographer who dealt with homoerotic themes, and Andres Serrano, who mixed religious iconography with bodily fluids. The court ruling was a blow to the four other artists who sued to block the law, and to many who support an artist’s right to free expression.

But the court ruling does not signal the death of the NEA. In fact, now that the law has been upheld, many believe public funding for the arts is poised for a comeback. Congress appears ready to continue funding the endowment at current, albeit diminished levels and active lobbying by grass-roots organizations has brought a sense of purpose, power and direction to the nation’s cultural work force. Add to this the effects of a strong economy filling both the private and public purse, and many arts organizations are feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about the future.

But creating and maintaining culture is constant work. No one knows that better than John Brademas. As an 11-term Democratic congressman from Indiana, Brademas was a co-sponsor of the measure creating the NEA. During his tenure he chaired the subcommittee that funded arts and humanities programs. After being defeated in the 1980 Reagan landslide, he went on to serve as president of New York University, where he remains president emeritus. He’s also chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, which has published a report, “Creative America,” outlining a plan to reinvigorate cultural support systems for the coming new century.

Brademas brought his ideas to Los Angeles last month, where he met not just with mavens of high culture, but with representatives of the film and recording industries as well, trying to establish a bond between the for-profit and not-for-profit arts. He’ll be holding similar meetings in other cities throughout the year.

At age 71, Brademas continues to maintain a hectic schedule, often traveling with his wife, Mary Ellen, a physician. In a conversation from London, he talked about the importance of culture, arts education and attitudes toward public support for the arts, in the United States and abroad.

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Question: Anyone who pays any attention to art and politics in this country is well aware of cutbacks in government support for the arts. What’s the situation there in Britain: Is the new Labor government taking a different position on support for cultural activities?

Answer: It’s interesting that, as we speak, the newspapers in London are reporting a controversy over funding for the Royal Opera. Earlier in the week, the Financial Times had a special section on business sponsorship of the arts. The prime minister, Tony Blair, was meeting with leaders of various arts organizations to explain the new Labor government’s position on funding the arts, which is not expected to increase funding for the arts, but to simply maintain funding at the levels set by the previous Conservative government. So the whole question of public support for the arts is very much a subject of debate here in Britain, much as it is at home.

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Q: In the U.S., federal government outlays for the arts and humanities breaks down to roughly 36 cents a person. Your committee has called for an increase to $2 per capita by the year 2000. That’s just 18 months from now. Do you think that’s a realistic goal?

A: Well, that depends on what happens in the elections. When I was in Los Angeles recently, someone asked me why we don’t have a special endowment for arts education, something separate and distinguished from the NEA. I said I don’t think that’s a good idea, just as I don’t support the idea of a check-off box on the tax form as a way of raising arts and humanities money. People always look for a substitute to political will to assure funding for their particular interest. So I believe the answer to your question really depends on the positions taken by candidates for election in the year 2000. But with a new century upon us, it seems to be a splendid goal. Perhaps one that is not easy to achieve, but I’m encouraged by recent actions in the House Appropriations Committee, which has voted to continue current-level funding for the NEA.

A number of Republicans joined Democrats in approving this measure, and that gives me hope that we are seeing a revival of the bipartisan coalition in support of the arts and humanities that characterized my time in Congress.

I think there has been something of a retreat from the intensely ideological opposition to the NEA. That’s not to say that those of us who support the arts should take anything for granted, because the NEA remains a kind of litmus test for the hard right wing. But I think that’s becoming less politically attractive as more and more grass-roots support develops for the NEA. Organizations such as Americans for the Arts and Americans United to Save the Arts and Humanities have been very effective in drumming up support and communicating that support to Congress. Public-opinion polls show that people, on the whole, want government support for the arts and humanities, so it’s not accurate to say people are against spending tax dollars on these programs.

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Q: This may be a simplistic question, but it’s at the heart of this discussion: Why should the government spend tax money on the arts and humanities, and how do those expenditures serve the public good?

A: You might ask the question, “Why should the government support education, or why should the government support health?” The are a number of reasons why the government should support the arts and humanities. One is simple economics. In many communities, such as yours in Southern California, the major institutions of learning and culture make huge contributions to the economy. Second, there’s an increasing awareness and understanding that an exposure to the arts helps young people learn other subjects. An education in the arts helps people become more flexible, creative and productive. And, a fundamental reason for supporting the arts and culture is to elevate the quality of life. Art is and has been part of every great and noble society.

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Q: And, yet, there are those who refer to the children of the last two decades as a lost generation when it comes to the arts, because of continued cutbacks in arts programs in the primary and secondary schools. What is, or what will be the effect of this dearth in arts education on the future of the arts in this country?

A: I think the attitude that the arts are a frill and simply something to be supported only if anything is left over is profoundly mistaken. The way the world is, nothing is ever left over. The first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is the honorary chair of our committee, and she has made restoring funding for arts education a top priority. One reason for investing in arts education is fairly simple. If you’re going to have audiences for the arts, you have to expose young people to them, so that they understand and appreciate cultural activities. My mother was a school teacher for 50 years, and taught music and art to 3rd and 4th graders. So I grew up in a family in which education in the arts was regarded as very important. It pains me a great deal to see that importance diminished.

Having said that, I should draw your attention to a book, just published by an economist, Tyler Cowen, of George Mason University, called “In Praise of Commercial Culture.” In that rather startling title, he argues that it is a mistake to assume that the American economy has brought about an erosion of culture. In fact, Cowen believes the wealth of our country has made for a wide diversity in the forms of culture and provides much greater access to the many types of art we produce. So that’s another side of the argument, and one that is significant, particularly in a state like California, where the creative industries are so important. Places like Hollywood would be weakened if we didn’t have places like the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, which turns out film directors of the quality of Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Spike Lee.

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Q: Yet, while it’s clear that the popular, for-profit arts are vibrant in this country, it’s not clear that what can be termed the high arts--opera, symphony and perhaps dance--are doing all that well. How do you convince someone who is not interested in these forms of art that supporting them with tax dollars is worthwhile and not just a way of preserving elitist culture?

A: You show them the facts. Every state in the union now has a state arts council. The number of symphony orchestras has grown dramatically, as have the numbers of opera, dance and theater companies. There is an enormous spectrum of art available to the American people, and to charge that it is elitist just doesn’t hold water. In many places, attendance is up and, for the most part, philanthropic support for cultural organizations has continued to increase.

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Q: How much of the fate of funding for the arts is simply the result of the ebb and flow in the economy?

A: Any institution that has an endowment of investment funds does better in a flourishing economy. An institution that solicits private donations should have more success in times of good fortune, when people can afford to give more. Elected officials should be more flexible in times when tax revenues are expanding. But it’s just like anything else in the world: You have to work at it, all the time.

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Q: One idea in your “Creative America” report is to create a “new revenue source to support but not replace existing funding” for cultural expression. But the report doesn’t identify the source of that support.

A: There are different ideas that have been suggested, including a dedicated postage stamp. I met last month in Los Angeles with about 45 leaders of the film and recording industries to talk about the possibilities of forging new partnerships between the profit-making cultural industry and nonprofit arts organizations. Such a partnership might produce revenue that could be shared by both. I don’t have a specific prescription to offer, which is one of the reasons why I met with these people. I wanted to hear their ideas, and get them thinking. We are a very inventive people in the United States, and we need to be constantly thinking of new ways to support our culture.

A fundamental theme in our report, “Creative America,” is that we must continue to depend on the pluralistic support for the arts that has served us so well. We need private support from individuals, foundations and business, and we need government support at the local, state and federal levels. There is a kind of ecology of support for culture in this country, and we need to understand and encourage its growth. There’s no silver bullet that will solve the problem of funding for the arts. We need an entire quiver of arrows to get the job done. And given that the country is so diverse, we must have a variety of approaches.

We also need people who are as innovative in fund-raising as they are in creating cultural expression. We need to continue to be more and more imaginative if we want the arts and humanities to flourish, so that we can continue as a cultural leader of the world.