THE CHICAGO READER: WHAT WILL OBAMA DO FOR THE ARTS?

“It was clear during the campaign which aspiring leader of the free world was the arts candidate. Barack Obama—his earnest mug the inspiration for a thousand loving portraits—had a brief but strong voting record on arts issues and a platform that called for more money for the National Endowment for the Arts and more art in the schools. Artists across the country took up his cause. But two months after the election, with the economy in free fall and the Middle East on fire, they’re still waiting to see exactly what his administration’s arts program will look like.

The arts are a no-show on the list of 23 top agenda items posted at the Obama transition team Web site, change.gov. You have to click on ‘additional issues’ to bring up a tiny paragraph explaining that, as ‘the author of two best-selling books,’ the president-elect ‘uniquely appreciates the role and value of creative expression.’ Calls to his transition press office for clarification went unreturned, and it appears that all that can be said about the Obama arts program is that he has more pressing issues on his plate. Meanwhile, the appetite for that program is growing by the day, with the U.S. arts community salivating at the prospect of government handouts that would’ve been unimaginable before the economy tanked.”