Buffy Wicks, NEA String Carrot Before Obama-Centric Artists

A bad thing, but only in part

Has Buffy Wicks sent them happily on their mission to produce Obama art?(Photo: flickr.com)

Let’s begin here: A nation’s culture is highly dependent upon a free and thriving arts community. We must assume this to be an immutable fact.

Now let’s tune out Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for a moment. They make some valid points about how some of what the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and Buffy Wicks’ White House Office of Public Engagement is doing veers into paying for artistic propaganda when they should be encouraging artists to follow their particular visions. That’s great, but rather than contributing more to right-wing Obama venom simply for the sake of doing so, let’s look at it from a more sober angle. Yes, some artists appear en route to being given what amounts to a payday loan for their services to the government. But let’s see the good in this rather than focusing on the Obama hate.

Artists create things that reflect their world

Such sharing is integral to the human experience. American Art critic Suzi Gablik has rightly theorized that “For art to be relevant, artists must address the social and spiritual issues of our time.” So what is the problem with artists creating works that study the problems of the day: health care, energy, the environment, etc? Nothing in itself. An artist in a free society has a right to take a stand for what they believe in. Spectators have the right to agree, disagree or be indifferent (although too much indifference will lend itself to extinction). People must care about things. … click here to read the rest of the article titled “Buffy Wicks, NEA String Carrot Before Obama-Centric Artists“