{"id":76,"date":"2011-01-30T07:58:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T13:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/?p=76"},"modified":"2011-01-30T07:58:44","modified_gmt":"2011-01-30T13:58:44","slug":"what-next-death-panels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/2011\/01\/what-next-death-panels\/","title":{"rendered":"What next, death panels?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mr. Rocco Landesman, NEA Chair<\/p><\/div>\n

In an interesting turn of events last week, the NEA Chair, Rocco Landesman, echoed the “too much art” refrain that we’ve been hearing lately.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The press quotes varied from this one<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0on the NY Times Arts Beat e-column to this one<\/a> in the Post.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The Post has him saying, “We’re overbuilt.\u00c2\u00a0 We have too many theaters.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And the Times quote is, “You can either increase demand or decrease supply.\u00c2\u00a0 Demand is not going to increase so it’s time to start thinking about decreasing supply.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let’s leave aside for today the\u00c2\u00a0thought that the Chair of the NEA\u00c2\u00a0apparently said publicly\u00c2\u00a0that “demand is not going to increase.”\u00c2\u00a0 If I thought that, I could not do my job. But that’s another subject for another day.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the moment, the interesting part of Mr. Landesman’s public musings\u00c2\u00a0has to do with\u00c2\u00a0whether his agency ought to give fewer, larger grants.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether or not there is\u00c2\u00a0an over-supply of theater, this would be a good idea.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of us can remember the days when the NEA\u00c2\u00a0awarded 7-figure grants that had a galvanizing impact on local support (remember the Challenge grant program?) and even made local news because\u00c2\u00a0NEA grants\u00c2\u00a0carried a meaningful\u00c2\u00a0(and helpful) imprimatur.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, if you’re lucky and you still have a local newspaper with arts coverage,\u00c2\u00a0your NEA grant might be listed in a column with\u00c2\u00a0a couple\u00c2\u00a0dozen other organizations, most of whom receive the same $25,000 – $75,000 (and the SPCO is extremely pleased to be on the list, at an increased funding level, this year).\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the grants process from application to review to reporting is if anything more cumbersome, not less so.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not saying these grants don’t make a difference, they do.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the matter of relative impact I’m considering.\u00c2\u00a0 Could the NEA make a greater\u00c2\u00a0impact if\u00c2\u00a0the agency awarded fewer grants?<\/p>\n

Ah, but the difficulty\u00c2\u00a0of choosing!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0If the NEA decides to give fewer larger grants in the future, they don’t need to look at this\u00c2\u00a0process as a sort of death panel — i.e. choosing which organizations will die without them.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 What’s needed\u00c2\u00a0from the Endowment is to identify which leadership organizations ought to receive (federal) money to do their work – to find those who are\u00c2\u00a0thriving in the current chaos and help them succeed even further.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It is not a death sentence for the organizations that don’t receive funding!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Cultural organizations live and die at the local level — we serve a local audience and have local boards and primarily local donors.\u00c2\u00a0 Many, many organizations have and will be able to make it without the NEA.<\/p>\n

How can the NEA identify leadership organizations?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0First, let’s make this an optimistic conversation, one that’s about life (where do we find inspiration?) instead of death (which of us should be euthanized?).\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s\u00c2\u00a0agree that leadership is\u00c2\u00a0about what you are, not about what you aren’t.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And let’s agree that leadership organizations can demonstrate they have an engaged and growing audience, and are dedicated to that being so.\u00c2\u00a0 If the NEA is currently funding organizations that are not leaders, then Mr. Landesman’s public soul-searching is understandable.\u00c2\u00a0 To change this is within his reach.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interesting turn of events last week, the NEA Chair, Rocco Landesman, echoed the “too much art” refrain that we’ve been hearing lately.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The press quotes varied from this one\u00c2\u00a0on the NY Times Arts Beat e-column to this one in the Post.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The Post has him saying, “We’re overbuilt.\u00c2\u00a0 We have too many theaters.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-76","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}