Stung by dint of dramatic cutbacks in federal arts programs and the virtual elimination of grants to individual artists.

Stung by dint of dramatic cutbacks in federal arts programs and the virtual elimination of grants to individual artists, the arts community is stepping into the breach with a grant program of its own

Arts patrons and 22 arts foundations plan to announce today the launch of the Creative Capital Foundation in fresh York. The foundation is to be fet at a cocktail party tonight at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Initially financed with $5 million, the non-profit organization will give $1 million a year to 50 to 60 artists in the performing and visual arts. And discussion which has plagued the National Endowment for the Arts, will be no goal "There was a gap in the funding of artists wanting to do novel forms of art and who weren't going to be picked up through the entertainment community or the mainstream art world," said Archibald Gillies, chairman of the of recent origin foundation board and president of the Andy Warhol Foundation. "We'll expect at art that's interesting, innovative, steady experimental and that challenges convention." The initiative and decision to focus forward polemic projects were sparked on the congressional culture wars athwart the NEA, led by House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and other lawmakers and organizations. molested that controversial artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano had benefited from NEA funding, Armey engineered a 40% sculpture in agency funding and termination of principally individual grants in the fiscal 1996 NEA batch Told of the creation of the private-sector effort, Armey's pres secretary, Michele Davis, said: "This is what we've been saying all along. sway has no business deciding what is and what is not art." Conservatives have maintained that the private sector should pay for the arts. however some NEA supporters have worried that the recently made known foundation could be used against the agency just as it is rebuilding congressional support. William J Ivey, who has been NEA chairman les than a year, is asking Congres for a big increase in his parcel from $98 million this year to $150 million in the 2000 fiscal year that begins Oct 1 And he is talking about reinstituting grants to artists a program that distributed $10 million a year at its peak in several years. Ivey said he welcomed the novel foundation and does not think it impedes his search for more federal dollars. "Everything the NEA does is part of arts funding in the US" Ivey said. "Never are we the entire support arrangement The private sector needs to play a character but the NEA provides a perception of public investment, permanence and continuity that sole a federal agency can bring to arts funding." Art gallery possessor Ronald Feldman, a member of the modern foundation board, said: "Even with NEA stocks going to individual artists, this would still be stand in want ofed It is in no way intended to replace the NEA.

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