National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia says the agency has left its sometimes controversial past behind. “Some of artists the NEA supported in the late 1980s and 1990s prompted conservatives to try to destroy the agency. Its detractors argued it was funding art that was obscene and offensive. Its budget was cut by 40 percent. Today, it is far less controversial and there is little public criticism of its offerings, which include Shakespeare, poetry and opera.”