NEA AND STATE DEPARTMENT REINSTATE BIENNIAL ADVISORY PANEL

The National Endowment for the Arts and the State Department have agreed to reinstate an advisory committee to recommend artists to represent the United States at international exhibitions like the Istanbul and Cairo Biennials, Carol Vogel reports in the New York Times. Such a committee existed for about fifteen years. But it disbanded at the end of 2003, when the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Foundation withdrew their support from international exhibitions, saying they were refocusing their grant programs. “We are going back to the traditional way the N.E.A. helped manage exhibitions,” said Dana Gioia, the endowment’s chairman.