BY DENNIS LYNCH | Concern that President Donald Trump plans to completely eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has local arts organizations and elected officials up in arms over what would be a devastating blow to cultural programs in the city.
The two national endowments write hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks to dozens of dance companies, foundations, galleries, and individual artists in Lower Manhattan, mostly for works on specific projects. The impact of a loss in funding for Downtown arts would be much more than cultural, according to Bruce Allardice, Executive Director of Ping Chong + Company (pingchong.org). The theater company has received dozens of grants over the last quarter century.
“What is the biggest impact the arts has in Downtown? The arts bring people to the Village — to restaurants and bars,” Allardice said. “It helps our urban culture be vibrant; that’s why so much of the [NEA]’s work has a community development aspect. The economic impact, if that were to end, is quantifiable.”
Ping Chong + Company received $25,000 this year to fund “Where the Sea Breaks Its Back,” a multi-discipline show about Alaskan culture and history. It will premiere and tour in Alaska before coming to New York.
“The arts are an ecology,” said Allardice, “so the loss of NEA support, if that were to happen, will be devastating; particularly to smaller communities and arts organizations across the country.”
The NEA grant makes up only about 10 percent of the funding for “Where the Sea Breaks Its Back,” but it’s used as leverage for raising funds from other sources. Each national endowment grant comes with an obligation to raise three times that amount from other sources. Ping Chong won’t have to shut its doors, Allardice said, but the community as a whole will suffer.
The relatively small grants can mean a lot, especially to small arts organizations, but it’s a drop in the bucket in terms of the national budget — the combined $298 million cost of the NEA and NEH are roughly 0.006 percent of the $3 trillion federal budget. That’s less than 94 cents per capita per year to fund.
However small a slice it is, the federal government currently runs a $552 billion deficit, and Republicans are looking at a myriad of cuts to slash federal spending by $10.5 billion over the next decade. Congress will have to sign off on the cuts and Republicans have control of both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Over the years, Republicans criticized the NEA in particular for partially funding what some call “inappropriate art.” Debate was the most fervent in 1987, a year after the NEA provided $5,000 to photographer Andres Serrano, who then created the controversial “Piss Christ” photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in his urine.
Risa Shoup, Executive Director of Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc; fabnyc.org), which advocates for cultural and arts groups in the Lower East Side and helps maintain affordable rehearsal spaces for rent, said defunding the national endowments would be an “egregious thing to do,” and called it indicative of a wider effort to combat dissent.
“This is not a cost-cutting decision; this is some kind of symbolic decision meant to assert dominance over those of us on the left, and I would go so far as to say over those of us in the arts who are making space for creative expression which naturally creates a platform for dissent and disagreement with this administration,” Shoup said. “We must align with our friends and partners who advocate for affordable housing, civil liberties, immigrant rights, public education and other sectors to continue to co-create spaces to share, gather and support. We are in this for the long haul.”
US Representative for District 12, Carolyn Maloney, who represents a large chunk of Manhattan’s East Side, north Brooklyn and east Queens, heavily criticized the decision. The Manhattan portion of the 12th District is home to hundreds of individuals and organizations that receive funds through the endowments.
“The arts and humanities represent who we are as a society,” Maloney said. “They open minds, expand people’s imaginations and their knowledge, empower creativity, bridge cultural gaps, and so much more. Our nation needs more access to the arts and humanities, not less.”
The rumors spread after a pre-inauguration report in The Hill cited anonymous sources with the Trump transition team. The plan would also privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which runs National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and reduce funding for many federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce and Department of Energy, according to The Hill.
“Piss Christ” was only one battle in the war over the endowments though. In 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan wanted to do away with them when he took office, although he ended up cutting only 10 percent of its budget. Congressmember Newt Gingrich went after the NEA in the following decade, and in 1997 its budget was cut by 40 percent. A group of 165 House Republicans wanted to cut it again in 2011, and an agreement was reached to cut it by six percent.
