Tempting as it may be to think of the arts as a nonpartisan issue, history shows that over the past 100 years the most meaningful and lasting arts support from the executive branch was largely the work of 20th century Democrats. It’s a point worth noting as Democrat Joe Biden is inaugurated as the president of the United States on Wednesday, Jan. 20.
Sure, the nation’s founders were often cultured, multilingual and known to engage in writing, invention and oratory, but it took the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal establishment of the Works Progress Administration in 1935 to formalize federal patronage of the arts. The WPA remains the gold standard in this country, which is why it’s frequently invoked as a solution toward putting artists to work in the midst of our national crisis.
Extending until 1943, the WPA and its programs, like the Federal Arts Project, the Federal Writers Project and the Federal Theatre Project, delivered teaching and creative jobs in the arts to a cross section of people — including women, African Americans and those with disabilities.
成千上万的公共艺术作品是由曾经或成为其领域领导者的艺术家创造的，例如，抽象表现主义者杰克逊·波洛克（Jackson Pollock）和威廉·德·库宁（Willem de Kooning）是WPA艺术家。北加州仍然拥有大量的WPA创作，包括Coit Tower和Aquatic Park以及Mission和Excelsior地区的景点，由壁画家Edith Hamlin，Frederick E. Olmsted Jr.和Diego Rivera等艺术家。雕塑家本尼·布法诺（Benny Bufano）（他彻底现代的大规模作品躲在整个城市中的视线中）；以及多学科的艺术家拉尔夫·斯塔克波尔（Ralph Stackpole）（他在奥克兰皇冠上的珠宝剧院（The Paramount Theatre）制作了舞台天花板）。斯塔克波尔（Stackpole）由罗斯福本人委托复制总统在金门国际博览会上展出的雕像，尽管那时，与现在一样，WPA及其艺术并非没有争议。
在拜登（Biden）政府期间，艺术家可以成为“第二响应者”，这是大流行世界的建筑师
As early as 1938, the WPA’s efforts toward the Federal Theatre Project came under the investigation of the House Un-American Activities Committee and, by the late ’40s and early ’50s, many artists, particularly actors and writers, would be under attack during a post-World War II push by Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to root out communists and their sympathizers from federally funded jobs. And President Richard Nixon persisted with the persecution into the ’70s with his famous enemies list and master list of political opponents, including Jane Fonda, John Lennon and Paul Newman.
Though not remembered as an aesthete, President Lyndon Johnson gets credit for establishing the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, a funding agency that includes the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The NEA is the contemporary standard-bearer for funding of the arts in this country.
从1977年到1981年，艺术家，作家和第二夫人琼·蒙代尔（她的绰号是琼是艺术）担任国民艺术与人文学科委员会的名誉主席，担任吉米·卡特（Jimmy Carter）总统的艺术顾问。正是蒙代尔将现代艺术家埃德·鲁沙（Ed Ruscha）和路易丝·尼夫森（Louise Nevelson）等人的作品带入了副总统之家，并将其变成了美国艺术画廊。画家罗伯特·劳森伯格（Robert Rauschenberg）和贾斯珀·约翰斯（Jasper Johns）都是她的朋友，她邀请摄影师安塞尔·亚当斯（Ansel Adams）在白宫与卡特会面。
然后是罗纳德·里根（Ronald Reagan），他于1981年上任后，着手消除NEA，并从权利中竭尽全力，完全向艺术筹集资金。参议员杰西·赫尔姆斯（Jesse Helms）和佐治亚州众议员纽特·金里奇（Newt Gingrich）也许是他们认为“不雅”的最反对的人。摄影师Robert Mapplethorpe和Andres Serrano的概念作品的作品有效地进行了审查，而Karen Finley和Nea Four的案件最终最终去了最高法院。尽管NEA并未拨款，但预算却降低了，并向个人艺术家提供了赠款。
总统比尔·克林顿（Bill Clinton）和巴拉克·奥巴马（Barack Obama）表现出对艺术的热爱和天赋 - 克林顿（Clinton）公开演奏了萨克斯（Sax），奥巴马不仅随身携带音乐，而且还可以携带音乐。Both presidents were known to invite hip musical guests (as was Carter) to the White House, and both were readers who took their cue from John F. Kennedy’s invitation to Robert Frost to became the only other presidents to invite poets — Maya Angelou and Miller Williams for Clinton, and Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco by Obama — to read at their inaugurations. The arts as an aspect of a balanced life was a given.
共和党中的一些人在推动资金资金的努力方面保持不懈，但前总统和侍从乔治·W·布什（George W.the NEA decide what’s art.”
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