I'm not against art. I'm all for it. I think that the arts are a valuable part of our culture and should be encouraged. However, I do not think the government should be using my tax dollars for this purpose. If private individuals want to fund the arts, great. Should we return to the system of patronage that characterized previous centuries and which produced such works as the plays of Shakespeare and the paintings of Michelangelo? Maybe. That's a good topic for discussion.
One of the things you run into with government sponsorship of the arts is trying to figure out just which artistic endeavors merit such support. From the article:
Public support for the arts was hotly debated in the 1990's. Conservatives complained that the agency was financing obscene or sacrilegious works by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Former Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, repeatedly tried to eliminate the agency.
So who decides? I, for one, consider the works of Lorenzo Sperlonga to be very artistic. They're also, mostly, very erotic (i.e. Not Safe For Work), but you can't deny the talent behind them. Should the federal government be funding his work? I think it should be up to the public to decide what artists they want to support. The arts won't go away without the NEA.
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