Obama decides to drop cautious arts policy

By BRETT ZONGKER

WASHINGTON — In his first year, President Barack Obama has marshaled the largest infusion of cultural funding in decades — despite a few stumbles.

Though still far less than arts advocates contend is needed, they have high hopes this president could transform cultural policy, funding and arts education for years to come.

“I think and feel he’s very much in the John F. Kennedy tradition — he embodies the humanities, essentially,” said Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman from Iowa whom Obama named chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. “That doesn’t mean a conservative leader can’t also. Abraham Lincoln was a great conservative who embodied the humanities.”

Across Washington, cultural leaders have taken note of Obama’s approach. They’re impressed with the variety of musical performances and workshops at the White House this year, covering classical, jazz, Latin and country tunes.

There’s also the $100 million in new funding for the arts, including a one-time $50 million infusion from the economic stimulus package to preserve arts jobs. There were sizable increases as well in the annual appropriations for the arts and humanities endowments. Both agencies will receive $167.5 million in 2010, their largest allocations in 16 years.

Arts supporters wanted more money, but they say the increases were significant and symbolic of Obama’s commitment.

“It’s still a relatively small amount of money — a $12.5 million increase [for 2010] spread over 100,000 arts organizations,” said Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “But symbolically, it was very important because so many state and local arts agencies are being cut by their state and local governments, so to have the federal government ... actually put more into arts, I think was very important.”

Obama’s efforts in the arts ran afoul of critics in August when a National Endowment for the Arts official asked artists to coordinate with the Corporation for Public Service on ways to help bolster Obama’s public-service agenda.

“I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment — you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service,” the NEA’s Yosi Sergant told artists on the call. He was reassigned after the call became public and later left the agency.

Critics said it was an overreach at Obama’s NEA, while supporters argued that the episode was overblown. Still, the White House issued an advisory for government agencies to avoid even the appearance of politics playing a role in federal grants.

At a dinner during last weekend’s Kennedy Center Honors, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said improving arts education will be a key element of his proposed changes in former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. He said parents, teachers and students all have noticed a “narrowing of the curriculum.”

“I’m convinced when students are engaged in the arts, graduation rates go up, dropout rates go down,” Duncan said.

The Obamas presided over the Kennedy Center Honors, but they also have been frequent guests at Kennedy Center performances and at New York’s museums and theaters.

“Both the president and the first lady have demonstrated an interest in the arts that is more active than most of their predecessors,” said George Stevens Jr., who has produced the Kennedy Center Honors as a national celebration of the arts for the past 32 years. “They’re young and connected to what’s going on in the world, and a part of that is the performing arts.”

Stevens has been enlisted to co-chair the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. The Obamas also have quietly recruited some of the biggest names in music, architecture, dance and show business to help guide arts initiatives. “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker, acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and actors Forest Whitaker and Alfre Woodard are among 25 members appointed to the committee.