A Brief Overview

Debate about the role of culture and the arts in America has a long history -- a history echoed in discussion within and without the country's diplomatic community on the value of cultural and arts programs in promoting international understanding and in the search for the proper mechanism for their administration. Defining the appropriate role of the U.S. federal government in promoting international programming by American artists and scholars has been an ongoing process that continues today.

One of the pivotal moments in the story was "The 1936 Convention for the Promotion of Inter-American Cultural Relations" that provided an important impetus for the incorporation of cultural programs into U.S. diplomatic activity abroad. The governments signing the convention agreed to initiate a program of graduate student, professor, and teacher exchanges on a reciprocal basis. This was our first commitment to a U.S. Government-sponsored international cultural exchange.

To carry out this commitment in 1938 a Division of Cultural Relations was established in the Department of State, "for the purpose of encouraging and strengthening cultural relations and intellectual cooperation between the United States and other countries." The Division of Cultural Relations organized a series of conferences to which Secretary of State Cordell Hull invited representatives of all the major cultural, educational and professional organizations and institutions in the U.S. The conferences spurred a vigorous nationwide, multi-related partnership with the private sector in the future conduct of the program. America was ready to tell the world of the growth of its cultural institutions and its artistic achievements.

In 1946, two State Department officials, Le Roy Davidson and Richard Hendel, organized an exhibition, "Advancing American Art." Works by distinguished contemporary American artists, abstract and representational, were selected. Part of the exhibit was sent to Europe. It challenged artistic assumptions on the other side of the Atlantic about American art, and questioned the pre-eminent position of Paris as the capital of the art world. Part of the exhibition also was sent to Latin America, while other exhibitions were developed to display American art at various Biennales.

The exposure to American art that these exhibitions gave to foreign audiences had an important impact on the world's perceptions of the United States, a country that before WWII had been considered little more than a cultural appendage of Europe.

Despite its success in staking out America's claim to respect in the field, such cultural activities put the Department of State on a collision course at home. Appropriated funds had been used to buy paintings by such contemporary American artists as Stuart Davis and Milton Avery for the exhibits. The collections proved a great success, a cause celebre, drawing a lot of attention -- including from the U.S. Congress. Not all of our legislators shared our artistic taste or funding priorities. Not surprisingly, the collection was sold.

The Reorganization Plan of 1953 followed, creating the United States Information Agency along with an Advisory Committee for the Arts. Exchange programs were left with the Department of State.

In 1954, President Eisenhower through an Executive Order created the Cultural Presentations Program and assigned the task of cultural presentations to the Department of State. This program was one of many new initiatives the Department undertook in the postwar years -- activities that increased as American isolationism diminished.

The International Cultural Exchange and Trade Fair Participation Act of 1956 underscored the need to ensure American representation at major international fairs and at exhibitions in such major art fields as music, drama, poetry, dance, literature, painting, sculpture, photography, motion pictures and the like. This law also provided the actual legislative sanction for the Cultural Presentations Program. Visionaries in the American body politic once again were looking outside our borders and recognizing the value of U.S. cultural presence overseas and the need for exchanges that promote international understanding.

The Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, by authorizing exchanges and presentations, created the essential structure under which U.S. Government international cultural and exchange programs are now organized. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the Department of State (later in USIA) was charged with setting policy and running the exchange and presentations programs. The United States Information Agency (USIA) was to implement those programs overseas. The Advisory Committee on the Arts was to continue its role in maintaining excellence in the culture and arts exchanges.

This drive for excellence in our overseas cultural presentation and the need to preserve important policy and program principles led to the 1964 "Larsen-Wolfe Report," a review requested by Assistant Secretary of State Lucius Battle and Chairman of the Advisory Board Gardner. The report covered the work and organization of the Department of State's cultural presentations. Its observations led to major changes in the way the State Department carried out the business of cultural exchange and programming.

In 1954, because the Department of State was unfamiliar with the professional and artistic elements of overseas programs, it had invited the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA) to create panels and other mechanisms for evaluating performers for overseas programs. A subordinate branch to ANTA, the International Cultural Exchange Service (ICES), was established to organize logistics for the performing artists.

The "Larsen-Wolfe Report" called for a major reform in this arrangement. The Report cited opinion at that time that the State Department had to oversee all the details for the cultural tour arrangements as well as select artists and performers. It concluded that the Advisory Committee for the Arts had been largely ignored and that the Department of State's cultural presentations suffered from a lack of high-level coordination between Government and the arts. The results had been "ad hoc decisions, yielding to assorted pressures, and a failure of effective communication among the several groups concerned with the program."

Despite these controversies and the continuing search for the right bureaucratic pigeonhole for the international arts program within the government's foreign affairs establishment, recognition that American art and scholarship contained its own genius was increasing among foreign audiences. In the minds of its foreign admirers, the United States had become a world power because of its industrial might, and now had the responsibility to display its "soft power," the intellectual prominence and moral respect that its maturing, democratic culture had won for it.

Because of its new position on the world stage, the United States found itself under enormous pressure in 1964 to take part in the 32nd Venice Biennale, which included art from over 34 countries. This time, an exhibit was sent with more than 90 borrowed works by such artists as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who were causing a stir in New York. Also included were Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella, and John Chamberlain. Under a grant from USIA, which then was headed by Edward R. Murrow, the collection was assembled by the U.S Commissioner Dr. Alan R. Solomon of the Jewish Museum of New York. It proved to be a seminal exhibit. That year Robert Rauschenberg was the choice of the judges for the international grand prize for painting, and the impact of American art on European viewers was surely as dramatic as any since the Cubists.

Unfortunately, once again, success overseas, this time at the Venice Biennale, did not produce universal support back home. Not everyone in the United States shared the euphoria over the successful exhibit or the notion that 'pop art' was the right representation of our culture. Calvin Tomkins in the April 1965 issue of Harper's Magazine found the reaction of the U.S. Government to this criticism 'perplexing'! He reported how in February 1965 despite its success, USIA's budget request to Congress following the Biennale "made clear that it would withdraw from supporting international art shows..." He reported, "strong indication that the government's fine arts programs might very well be transformed..." The author cited "fear of stirring up congressional ire" as a possible reason. Indeed, the fine arts program soon went to the Smithsonian Institution.

And, once again, USIA and the Department of State were forced to redefine how to present America to the world, showcasing our culture and our arts in a way that made programmatic sense while achieving our larger policy objectives. Ultimately, the Agency's thinking led to a re-engagement in sponsoring art exhibitions.

In the late 1970s, the Arts America Program was created. As part of the United States Information Agency, Arts America provided a global American cultural presence. By the early 1990s, Arts America had a budget of approximately $3.5 million and employed more than thirty people in a diverse range of exhibitions, presentations, and performances intended to highlight American artistic achievements, dynamism, and diversity.

In the face of budget cuts and the push for balanced budgets in the mid-1990s, USIA was faced with tough decisions and had to cut valuable programs. The staff and budget of Arts America were cut sharply and the program was folded into the Office of Citizen Exchanges, where it became the Cultural Programs Division.

The architects of the October 1, 1999, consolidation of the United States Information Agency with the Department of State acknowledged the role the arts and humanities can play in public diplomacy and maintained funding -- although at much the same reduced level -- for the Cultural Programs Division when they incorporated it along with the Office of Citizens Exchange of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs into the State Department. The Cultural Programs Division and the projects it supports, however, have recently been undergoing a reassessment. This has been due primarily to the request for more cultural programming expressed by the Department of State's missions overseas in a recent worldwide, in-house survey. This interest by ambassadors and other seasoned professionals in the field speaks eloquently to the value and impact of arts and cultural programs overseas. The budget for cultural presentations in FY-2000 is almost exactly what it was in the 1954-62 period -- about $2 million annually -- but in dollars NOT adjusted for inflation. If we adjusted that $2 million to today's dollars, we would be spending $11.4 million! Today, the Cultural Programs Division is staffed by only seven people, down from a high of over 30 ten years ago.

Nevertheless, the Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs -- with its $2 million budget for the Division of Cultural Programs -- has at least halted the unfortunate downward funding trend for arts and humanities programming that has been taking place over the last several years. Working within budget constraints, the Bureau's goal is to maintain -- and possibly increase -- the level of cultural programming we offer our diplomatic posts overseas.

The Cultural Program Divisions' programs, although well managed and highly targeted, barely scratch the surface of the demand we know exists among our posts overseas. If a truly substantial increase in program volume is to take place, we must find the optimal mechanism to deliver programs of the highest caliber that benefit those involved in the program and contribute to international understanding.

As funds have declined, we have moved away from the model of major, direct grant-sponsored international performing and visual arts tours with government "impresarios." Today the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs employs a hybrid model, one that engages and energizes the private and non-profit sectors.

Overseas, our public diplomacy officers identify cultural partners for our projects who now receive less direct financial support than in-kind and facilitative support. The partners try to raise the necessary financial support. Such partnerships deepen a project's impact by getting others involved more completely in the dynamics that surround an artistic initiative. Similarly, through our embassies and missions abroad, the Bureau tries to respond to at least some of the requests from foreign institutions to round out carefully elaborated cultural programming with American contributions.

Here in Washington, the Cultural Programs Division also works through partnerships. For example, since 1988 the Cultural Division and its predecessors have joined the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts to support the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions. The Festivals Fund supports U.S. representation at prestigious international art biennials and provides modest grants to over 100 groups each year to participate in music, theater, and other performing arts festivals. The Department of State provides $300,000 yearly to this fund.

The Kennedy Center is our partner in producing the Performing Arts Calendar, a web-based compilation for American embassy staffs and foreign impresarios of U.S. performing artists who have scheduled overseas tours. The Kennedy Center works closely with the Cultural Programs Division to find and audition fine, young jazz musicians to participate in the Department of State's Jazz Ambassadors Program.

Of course, the Department of State's use of private-sector partnerships is not a recent initiative, as our long running partnership with the American film industry illustrates. Since the 1950's, that industry has helped to ensure official U.S. representation at international film festivals and has assisted in providing 35mm feature films for Ambassadorial screenings and other film events. Through that partnership, U.S. Ambassadors and Chiefs of Missions in 80 countries hosted invitational screenings of the film "AMISTAD" in 1998, prior to the film's commercial release abroad, to commemorate Black History Month and to promote greater respect for the rule of law. The U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Office in Geneva, for example, hosted a special screening for 500 officials to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today, the Cultural Programs Division, in the face of modest funding, is struggling to carry out dynamic programs which spotlight the best of American culture abroad. While public-private partnerships with both American and overseas entities are used creatively by both the Cultural Programs Division and our embassies abroad to provide the important cultural dimension to our foreign policy, our efforts to do so would be greatly strengthened by increased funding for the varied programs we employ.

Last year we sent five trios of American jazz musicians to Latin America, Africa and the Near East to represent their country under the Jazz Ambassadors program. Under the American Artists Abroad program, the Division helped send overseas thirteen other performing arts groups. Among the groups were the River Arts Repertory Company, the Trisha Brown Dance Co., and the Tuscon Arizona Boys Choir.

Through the American Cultural Specialist Program, the Department of State also promotes training and cooperation in such fields as cultural preservation, arts management, museum conservation, publishing and intellectual property rights, theater and conflict resolution. For example, in FY'00 the Division provided an American Cultural Specialist to discuss the commercially promising linkages between tourism and arts management in Nepal.

The American Cultural Specialists Program provides posts with highly targeted programs, such as a video performance expert we sent to Nigeria to teach video performance as a tool for alternative dispute resolution or the political cartoonist sent to Turkmenistan. These programs underscore the fact that cultural programming is often the best, and at times, the only option in opening up or rebuilding foreign-policy relationships.

We are finding partnerships effective in helping U.S. institutions expand their expertise and presence overseas. Toward this end, the Cultural Division supports, along with a prestigious list of additional sponsors, the American Association of Museum's International Partnership Among Museums Program. This program pairs U.S. museums with foreign museums to carry out cooperative projects in education, exhibit development, design, management, collections care, and technology.

Our recent White House Millennium projects illustrate how the Cultural Programs Division can carry out initiatives that have a real impact -- when it receives the support it needs, such as the special funding available for Millennium projects. For instance, the Cultural Programs Division collaborated with the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institution on the highly successful Millennium program "Woven by the Grandmothers: 19th Century Navajo Textile Exhibition," now touring six Latin American countries. Another Millennium program touring twenty countries, "The American Film Preservation Showcase," was organized in partnership with the Library of Congress and with the support of a number of U.S. film companies. The Cultural Programs Division has also collaborated directly with the National Archives to launch a traveling photography exhibit, "Picturing the Century," which highlights 20th Century photography. This partnership between our institutions has given the National Archives its first international touring exhibition.

The Department is especially pleased to have organized in partnership with Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum, a highly successful Millennium exhibition of the artist's works. The exhibit, "Andy Warhol: His Art and Life," is touring twelve countries in eastern and southern Europe. This special Millennium traveling exhibit marks the first time that artworks by a contemporary U.S. artist will be shown in several of these countries.

The "Andy Warhol: His Art and Life" exhibit at the Thessaloniki Trade Fair in Greece in August 2000 attracted practically the entire Greek government the opening night and helped smooth U.S.-Greek bilateral relations in the wake of the strong negative reaction of the Greek public to the NATO action in Kosovo.

The Warhol show was the first one-man show by a post-war artist to be exhibited in St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, and when it opened there in October, it attracted huge audiences. This has been a landmark exhibition that has already attracted more presidents and prime ministers than any previous touring show -- and the tour is not even half over!

Despite the success of the Warhol exhibition, it and the other Millennium projects are part of an initiative which by its nature is limited.

From the 1930s to the new millennium, despite questions concerning the role of the arts in our foreign relations and the appropriate bureaucratic mechanisms needed to ensure the quality of USG projects abroad, the luster of the programs that we have been able to carry out or encourage has shown through. Their enormous value and important contributions testify to their effectiveness in the increasingly complex world of public diplomacy.

On one level, arts and cultural programs can enrich the understanding that foreign audiences have of the U.S., our values, and our institutions. Cultural diplomacy programs can correct misapprehensions, misrepresentations, and just plain inaccuracies about who we are as a nation and what our policies seek to accomplish. On another level, they are a way in which U.S. institutions and their partners in host countries can build their international competencies and reputations through contact and cooperation.

In certain difficult political environments, where foreign decision-makers otherwise do not permit themselves contact with official Americans, cultural programs can provide a useful setting for gatherings with U.S. representatives based on a mutual respect for and enjoyment of the arts.

More generally, cultural diplomacy can nurture and sustain the same kinds of people-to-people links and relationships that our other exchange programs develop and like those others, can contribute measurably and specifically to our national well-being. For these reasons, the Department of State continues to see compelling reasons to invest in cultural diplomacy.

Nevertheless, if cultural and arts programs are to grow to become a truly effective element of American diplomacy, a consensus must be reached within the foreign policy community, Congress, private sector funding sources, and the arts community on their value to American interests overseas and at home.

Each of these elements will benefit from increased funding for such programs. The foreign policy community will gain a vital partnership with individuals and institutions that can help explain and promote American interests overseas. Members of Congress will find arts and cultural organizations within their constituencies strengthened by contact with foreign cultures and institutions. Private sector businesses will enhance their corporate images and increase their own access overseas through support for the arts. Finally, arts and education institutions, artists, and scholars will find that working through the Department of State's programs and the partnerships they engender will be pivotal moments in their development within the increasing global arts community. This is a situation where all those involved can win.

By the Cultural Programs Division of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State

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