The participant list prepared for the White House/NEA/Ministry of Propaganda organizational conference call included autobiographical blurbs to apparently help the call’s organizers identify the participants since none of the “artists” involved could be considered a household name.  That is unless your household is comprised entirely of unemployed, surly twenty-somethings whose worldly possessions consist of an i phone, a Vaio, a skateboard and, perhaps a few cans of spray paint.

The conference call and other efforts now emerging were organized by the National Endowment for the Arts at the behest of the White House to try and coordinate and focus the existing pro-Obama passion of the artistic community to directly promote administration political objectives.

This effort is justifiably being criticized as a misuse of government resources and a creative example of adapting the Chicago pay-to-play style to the federal scene.  What is an alternative artists supposed to think when the largest artistic grant-dispensing agency of the federal government comes-a-calling asking for help?  It is only natural that one would expect a quid pro quo when it comes to doling out cash for all manner of non-traditional, (read: incomprehensible) art, while the chap who cleverly mocked up the Obama/Joker poster will probably not be in line to cash in at the federal trough.

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There are two things fundamentally wrong with the Obama administration’s efforts to turn the arts into a vehicle for political advocacy.  First, it is an egregious abuse of power both in terms of misappropriation of public resources and a chilling of the free expression of ideas at the core of artistic vitality.  The second problem is that the resulting art as propaganda usually stinks.

You don’t have to be an ancient history professor to know that government controlled (or heavily influenced) art is, on the whole, lousy.  There are still artists alive today who either toiled in or toiled against the socialized artistic regimens of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.  Some laudable efforts undertaken by the WPA aside, there is no shortage of examples of art and architecture that glorifies the state and crushes the human spirit.  The funny thing is that the critics who most abhor the impact on art of the Nazis and Soviets and the works they produced are proud liberals who saw how it helped quash the concepts of non-conformity and innovation that are the life blood of artistic progress.

 When Obama’s leftist appointees at the National Endowment for the Humanities came up with the idea that they would recruit fellow-travelers in the arts community to harness their “talent” to promote the One’s political agenda they were hardly charting new territory.  Most every regime in history has done the same thing.  Allegorical painting is the most common example used by popes and princes to glorify their side of the political story.  Chairman Mao’s Red Brigades used drama and opera as tools of the state propaganda machine, and made ruthlessly sure that you didn’t experience any alternative theater on the side.

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Kerry Picket at the Washington Times reports today:

The Obama administration apparently met with 60 artists and creative organizers as early as May 12 according to an online document (downloadable)by the Pratt Center for Community Development, State Voices, Arlene Goldbard, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.  Other artists(link1 link 2)have corroborated this meeting happened. (h/t machogirl from FR)

Here are the bullet points from an online document called a “White House Briefing” report, though that has not yet been confirmed: (more…)