Ars gratia artis

Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

Barack Obama has said he wants to increase funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, so we asked theatrical producer Howard Bashford what he would do if he could run a more robust NEA.

“Oh my, oh my, oh my!” Bashford said, his eyes glazing. “All that money! Can you come back this afternoon? I’ll have an answer then.”

When we returned to his office later in the day, he had a steely look and a scribbled list.

“Where to start?” he exclaimed, waving the paper. “The arts need more real power, so I’d lobby for a Cabinet post for the arts. I should be right there when President Obama meets with the secretaries of State, Treasury, Labor et cetera.

“Of course, I’d have to be a frequent guest at the White House, where I’d advise the president to form an ‘artists corps’ – modeled on Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration – to dispatch into neighborhoods and schools to promote and mentor in music, poetry and creative writing, murals and computer graphics.”

Transported, Howard rose and began to pace about the office, gesticulating broadly.

“I’d provide communities access to NEA-subsidized SWAT teams of sympathetic and experienced urban planners and architects,” he said, “and I’d create a national architecture commissar to oversee the beautification of our cities.

“I would instruct the Smithsonian to develop a wing of political art, whose first exhibition would be about propaganda, torture and the Constitution. Then I’d move forward with a broad, far-reaching series of projects that question the role of religion and commerce in the life of the nation, as well as the effects of war on the soul of a nation. Along with this, there should be more money for both National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.”

“Whoa! Howard!” we said. “It sounds like you’d turn the NEA into a ministry of propaganda.”

“Hardly,” he sneered. “It wouldn’t be propaganda; it would be truth. The arts are all about beauty, and truth is beauty. Now, where did you stop me? Ah … I’d work to enhance every government program with a cultural component.

“I’d establish a Cinema Hall of Fame in New York City, the birthplace of American cinema, and all the entertainment academies – for film, music, theater, television – should have mandatory mentoring initiatives for the members.

“Howard,” we interrupted again, “how are you going to pay for all this stuff? The NEA’s annual budget is something less than $200 million.”

“Taxes!” he said, without hesitation. “Entertainment corporations should pay an arts tax of one half of one percent, redirecting a portion of their profits into things like required free piano lessons for all American children. It should be every child’s right. Call it the ‘Scales of Justice Program!’ ”

“Further, there should be a special tax on all artists who make more than $500,000 annually from their work.”

“So, you’d tax success,” we said.

“Solidarity! Solidarity!” Howard exclaimed. He turned toward his office windows and spread his arms as though addressing an unseen audience. “Each artist must support the whole. Each citizen must support the common good, embodied by the NEA. Yes! NEA will have a national banner, right below the Stars and Stripes. Arts ascendant! Arts on the march!”

As he continued to rant, we rose quietly and slipped out of the office.

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Lest you think Howard was being hyperbolic, you should know that nearly all of “his” visions were expressed by one or more of 16 eminences queried the Los Angeles Times about what they would do if given the reins of the NEA.

Put a pot of money on the table, then stand back and watch people fall all over themselves, telling how it should be spent, with scarcely a thought as to whether it should be spent. Of the respondents (who ranged from playwright Edward Albee to ’60s radical turned legislator turned writer Tom Hayden) only two said the government should stay away from the arts. These were columnist/writer Joel Stein and the professional Smart Alec, Bill Maher.

The latter echoed words I heard first from Sacramento artist Ron Popp. Among other things, Maher said that “art is basic to human nature, it will always be produced and does not need the government’s help.” Amen.