Putting Art Back in the Arts

While chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (1998-2001), Bill Ivey dreamed up an unofficial Cultural Bill of Rights, which he fleshes out in his book Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights . Now director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, Ivey argues that arts policy has long targeted two issues, arts education and increasing funding for nonprofit organizations, that aim to “bring more fine art to the American people” without encouraging more people to actually create. Here he answers some questions from the Utne Reader talked about why we’re making less art and what public policy’s got to do with it.