Posted by Danie on Jul 29, 2025
Creative Fiasco,
Episode 1 : The Life and Death of the NEA
Arts funding in America has been nonexistent or woefully inadequate for most of our nation’s history. The administration’s 2025 cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts take a bad situation and makes it nearly impossible.
In their debut episode, Nathan and Danie analyze and discuss the available data on what projects / organization had grants terminated or cancelled - and whether there’s any visible logic behind it.
They dive into the history of arts funding in America; a too brief tenure ripe with controversy from the very beginning.
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Please join the conversation!
We’re on Instagram and Threads at Creative.Fiasco.
If you really disagree, maybe we’ll have you on the show -
always here for expanding the conversation.
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Some of the Things We Reference in the Episode!
NYC Comptroller Report
Graphs Referenced:
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Grant Defunding Statistics
Why New York City Needs a Higher City Minimum Wage
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Poem: The Gift Outright, by Robert Frost
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Images Referenced:
Lots of Christian Imagery, Lots of Urine
Link to Images from the Mapplethorpe exhibit
Piss Christ, Serrano:
John Fleck, one of the NEA 4:
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Sources / Additional Readings:
The National Endowment for the Arts Begins Terminating Grants, New York Times
Statement by the National Endowment for the Arts on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget, 2024
Trump’s Executive Orders and the NEA: A Detailed Timeline, Oregon Arts Watch
National Endowment for the Arts: A History 1965 - 2008, Edited by Mark Bauerlein with Ellen Grantham