Is Our Best Hope for the NEA Gone Now That Sylvester Stallone Says He Would Decline an Arts Role?

by Paddy Johnson on December 19, 2016 Opinion

Artist Adrien Brody displays his work during the the kick off of Art New York and CONTEXT for 2016 New York Art Week at Pier 94 on May 3, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mireya Acierto/Getty Images)

Artist Adrien Brody displays his work during the the kick off of Art New York and CONTEXT for 2016 New York Art Week at Pier 94 on May 3, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mireya Acierto/Getty Images)

Last Thursday rumors began to fly that professional actor Sylvester Stallone would be asked to head the National Endowment for the Arts. He has no experience in government, but in 2009 he made a splash at Art Basel Miami when his amateurish paintings were made available for sale. As of last night, he declined any position that might be offered at the NEA, saying he’d much rather play a role in helping military veterans “find gainful employment, suitable housing and financial assistance these heroes respectfully deserve.”

Good for him, but this could represent a huge loss for the arts. Yes, really.

Trump’s nominees so far have often been in favor of abolishing the departments they would head. Trump has nominated Myron Ebell, a known climate change denier to head The Environmental Protection Agency. Rick Perry, who famously promised to abolish the Department of Energy (and, presumably along with it, the nuclear weapons laboratories of Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia,) has been nominated to head it. Betsy DeVos, a large Trump donor and his nominee for Secretary of Education, has advocated for replacing the public school system with a voucher system. (It’s worth noting that the DeVos family sponsors ArtPrize, the city wide competition in which the public votes for art.)

Long story short, having someone who may not know much about governing, but actually likes art, is much better outcome than I expected. The NEA has long been the target of Republicans who oppose the department for idealogical reasons. Given Trump’s record so far, it would be reasonable to assume that an enemy to the arts would receive the nomination.

In any case, so long as Trump is looking at celebrities to head up the Department, he might as well look at Adrien Brody and James Franco. Both are known to make bad art, and their political affiliation is unclear (though google suggests they lean democrat, which may be a disqualify them.) Whatever the case, either one would be better than Shia LaBeouf.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: