Abstract

This study examines the development of grantmaking policy of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from its inception in the mid-1960s to its near demise during the fiscal year 1996. It analyses NEA's experimentations to promote new and innovative works, demonstrating that the NEA failed to weather the controversy in the early 1990s due to the gradual erosion of the consecrated power of the arts in the contemporary society.