Amidst the ideological changes of dozens of federal agencies of Trump administration, the National Endowment for the Arts is rooting millions of dollars from its challenge America Initiative, which was designed to help non-profit art organizations with outreach .
That money has been transferred to a general grant for the budget of art projects, and on its www.arts.gov website on Thursday, according to an NEA announcement, the upcoming US will favor the arts and artists celebrating the celebrations.
The NEA announcement stated that funding for projects (K) will be given priority and the 250th anniversary to sign a declaration of independence will be celebrated. This and other amendments are “in response to recent instructions.”
Administration changes mark a major change in the funding of art in the US, and the latest efforts of administration to remove the initiative of diversity, equity and inclusion in the US government. The NEA website no longer has “projects” that “refer to the projects that reach groups/communities that reduce art. ,
The instructions given to the NEA given 60 years after 60 years of agency and non -profit art groups, after 60 years of theater, film, visual art and other works, after 60 years of producing and present Ended in manner. As a result, NEA is now in the business of financing patriotism, according to many leaders of Chicago art.
Jennifer Green, the artistic director of the Evanston -based Piven Theater Workshop, says, “The kind of funding that our theater has received in the past has gone originally.”
In previous years, Green says, “We have been awarded the NEA grant for work that we include adults with developmental disability.” Seeing the frequent public statements of President Donald Trump against Donald Trump and he sees the practices of “immoral and illegal” discriminatory work in federal agencies, Green Miracle: “If we create opportunities for the underputed people in the theater For the past, it is funded, so that is no priority now? Or also eligible for an NEA grant? ,
The official eradication of words like “Undskord” in the NEA website of this week does not sit well with a long -term Chicago Arts Leader Henry Godinase.
“It is stupid and narrow and ignorant,” Godinez, Professor of Northwestern University and the Department of Theater Chair, as well as Goodman Theater Artistic Associate and Member of Illinois Arts Council. He is also an artistic director of the biennial Latin Theater Festival in Goodman.
Godinez says that the emphasis of NEA on the undested audience has been as any other type of geographical diversity of federal art expenditure. “If you read the mandate of the NEA, it says” Underkord. “Not black. Not Lathani. Nobody is a dei. Nothing about breed or culture. It is about reaching communities outside the major urban centers in both red states and blue.”
Established in 1965, NEA is alive for now, but it has been a political goal first. In his first term, Trump became the first US President to propose the abolition of federal art funding in America; The support of the bipartisan Congress for national settlement for art rescued the agency at one time. But for decades, MPs on both sides of the corridor have been targeted to support it, which they have understood the projects with aggressive or politically conflict in art.
The NEA receives around $ 200 million in annual federal funding, this money distributes cultural groups and arts across the country to non -profit institutions. Agency President Maria Rosario Jackson resigned from his post on 20 January, with the last Trump appointment, Mary Anne Carter was now serving as a senior advisor.
The leaders of the Chicago-region art are waiting to find out how the NEA will implement the changes of this week, as of which more grants receive money. In addition to an accepted wave of declaration of freedom-themed projects and, perhaps, the mainstream music hit “1776” and “Hamilton” have a lot of revival, what is in the store?
For many non -profit organizations in Chicago, programming cannot change at all, says Rebecca Fons of Jean Siskel Film Center, which operates under the aegis of the School of the Art Institute.
Naturally, there are some questions about the Film Center Programming Mainstage, which can roll the wrong bell with the current administration, the annual Black Harvest Film Festival for one.
On the other hand, Fons says, “According to the definition, the film center receives funding that supports our year -long programming including black harvest. Black Harvest Black Celebrates the voices of American filmmaking. I will hope and guess that our program will fit within these new guidelines. Our plans have not changed and will not change, and if I am reading new guidelines properly, there should be no problem. ,
Many political arguments about NEA are lost is the amount that spends on many other nation art support. In 2023, the NEA budget was $ 207 million. Germany was about $ $ 2 billion in 2023 exchange rates. The culture budget of the United Kingdom was $ 9.93 billion, including a wide range of activity. France’s expenses, although the chaotic geo -political churning had decreased like many other countries in the final year, $ 11 billion in 2023.
This average is a slightly different measure for small or medium-sized non-profit arts organization, Green of the Pivane Theater Workshop says, which operates on an annual budget of $ 400,000 and says, fights for every dollar, .
Whenever they come, the NEA grant has been important for that budget, she says.
Green says, “Many of us do not rely on grants, donations and philanthropy to keep our doors open.” “In the Chicago region, for all of us who created it through an epidemic, any new obstacle is eagerly felt. It is as if we are being kicked all around in every possible direction. This is difficult, because art is usually a light in dark times. ,
NEA’s new priorities, she says, there was no surprise. “Arts and NEA are not priority for this administration. But this is tired.