Fund artists, not institutions

TO Dana Gioia, new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts:

You told The Times (“Politic Poet at the NEA,” by Diane Haithman, April 4) that you were someone “who deeply understands the issues” of a practicing artist. If that is the case, how can you adopt the NEA policy of denying artists grants while continuing to fund organizations?

Yes, art should be taught in school; yes, it’s good to reach out; yes, art should be part of the fabric of social life. But by denying direct support to artists, what you are doing is forcing individual creative artists to mold their output to fit the tastes and policies of existing presenting organizations (theaters, galleries, concert halls) instead of following their own muse. This is a distorting and painful situation for most creators, and it favors interpretive artists: actors, musicians, curators.

You are, in effect, helping to deplete the pool of those who take art into new and unknown places, who establish exciting and surprising new norms, who voice and fashion beliefs, images and sounds that shape our culture.

If not given the freedom to operate on the most cutting-edge level of their artistry, artists will dry up, wither and die. But the NEA will still be funding Shakespeare.

Please reconsider your plan for this important and impoverished institution, and don’t enable the demise of important art in this country. Give grants to artists!

Rachel Rosenthal

Los Angeles