Fourth annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy was presented by the American Council for the Arts, at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, March 20, 1991. The speaker, John Brademas, discusses the role of the federal government in supporting the arts, in particular reviewing that relationship from 1989 to 1991. He pays particular attention to the work of the Independent Commission; and considers ways of reinvigorating the National Endowment for the Arts.

The author explores the First Amendment aspects of the content restrictions on the grant-making process and other constitutional issues raised by the NEA controversy.

This publication represents a collaboration on the part of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) and the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (NALAA, now Americans for the Arts) to document the ways in which state and local arts agencies assist rural arts development.

The recent political cause celebre involving the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and its support for a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit has called into question the fundamental assumptions underlying public support for culture in the . This incident amounted to a political scandal for two reasons:

Review by Kenneth Aaron Betsalel of the book The New Politics of Pornography (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1990, 266 p.).

After summer long skirmishes in 1989, the U.S. Congress, early in October, agreed on an appropriations bill in which the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was forbidden to fund obscene art. This was a compromise solution to an even more restrictive amendment proposed by Jesse Helms on July 26 and passed that same day by the Senate in a voice vote. Helms' bill would have also disallowed federal support for materials that were indecent or which denigrated people on the basis of religious beliefs, gender, handicap or national origin.

Some grants made in recent years by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) focused public interest not only on the issue of sexual explicitness in art but on the way sexually explicit art was to be funded. One consequence of the NEA grants for the Mapplethorpe exhibition, and for the support of works by other artists for whom sexual style or content was central to their presentation, has been Congress's scrutiny of the NEA's activities and legislation. In 1990, Congress appointed a bipartisan Independent Commission on the Arts, whose functions were to reflect on the nature of artistic

The author examines Senator Jesse Helms' proposed 1989 amendment to the appropriations bill for the National Endowment for Arts, which would bar federal funds from being used by the NEA and other federal agencies and institutions to support the creation, performance, or exhibition of materials, which might be considered obscene. The author also examines the trial that resulted from the exhibition of the Robert Mapplethorpe's exhibition at the Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center. The museum's director was indicated by a grand jury for pandering obscenity and improper use of a minor in a

Hearing on the reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts; held in Malibu, California, March 5, 1990. This is the seventh reauthorization legislation for the Endowments. The original act of 1965 which provided for the establishment of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, which was amended in 1968, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1980, and 1985 has been amended again to reflect changes in programs and procedures. Includes testimony and supporting statements by government and arts leaders related to the reauthorization.

Included in this booklet is a position paper which outlines the following themes in the reauthorization process of the NEA. These themes included 1) Creativity as the basis of the American character; 2) The Endowment's record of accomplishment and contribution to: the growth of the arts, increased access to the arts, multiculturalism, advancing the business/management skills of arts organizations, and arts education; and 3) the Endowment's peer panel process, in which every grant is recommended by citizen panels, voted on by private citizens on the Council, and in almost very instance, matched