One doesn’t have to follow art or politics too terribly closely to understand that much of the art world deeply opposes the current presidential administration. Just as an example, if you looked in on the Grammy’s a week ago you picked up on it clearly. The performances in yesterday’s Super Bowl were riven with it.But friction between artists and politicians is nothing new in American history.
The last time the art world was in such opposition to a president was during the Vietnam war, although even then it wasn’t quite like this. (If you’re a fan of the group formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, you know there was friction between the Bush administration and the art world after the invasion of Iraq. But that was less than either today or the 1960s. And the Bush administration certainly didn’t fire back.)
Lyndon Johnson’s presidency was awash in contradictions, not least of all regarding his standing in the eyes of the art world. On the one hand, no president before him had ever done so much to support the arts from a policy standpoint. He pushed the bill through Congress that created the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in DC. Even more sweeping, he endorsed, and signed into law, the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts.
But, on the other hand, his foreign policies, most of all regarding the war in Vietnam, set him at odds with much of the country’s cultural elite.
Early in 1965, those around the President thought that such friction could be lessened perhaps by sponsoring a White House Arts Festival. Not just any arts festival, but the largest the White House had ever hosted. Maybe it could remind artists that the President was on their side.
One of Johnson’s advisors was a Princeton University history professor named Eric Goldman. (Imagine having a history professor be an advisor to the president.) In early 1965, Goldman began fleshing out the idea of a day-long celebration of all the arts to be held in and around the White House. Displayed throughout the house and the grounds would be almost forty paintings, twenty-six sculptures, and numerous photographs. There would be ballet and classical music performances all day in the East Wing. There would be readings of poetry and literature. There would be live productions of excerpts from great American plays along with a screening of great American films. Finally, Duke Ellington and his orchestra would close out the evening with an outdoor concert on the lawn. Johnson liked the idea a lot.
But as it turned out, the timing was far from perfect.I’ll tell you why next week.
David and Art - When the Art World Came to washington
