The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., is one of the nation's premier performing arts centers, holding some 2,000 events for some 2 million arts goers each year.

It's an unusual public-private partnership with most funding raised privately, but some coming from the federal government.

And it's traditionally been a bipartisan institution,

with presidents adding their choices for members of the Kennedy Center board.

Now it's at a crossroads.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports from the Kennedy Center

for our Arts and Culture series Canvas.

This is a spectacular sky painting over the Kennedy Center by Chinese artist Saiguo Chang.

For the opening of the Earth to Space Festival, a three-week event exploring the intersection

of arts, science, and technology.

There were installations such as this 22-foot space man by artist Brendan Murphy.

It's about embracing the unknown, problem-solving. And a wall of quilt blocks conceived by an

actual astronaut Karen Nyberg, the first to quilt while in space. Usually on Earth I sew

with a machine, so the hand sewing part was a little bit of a challenge.

Artists have always been peaked by nature. As vice president for international programming, Alicia Adams has put on many of these festivals.

I think we are unique, and I think we are the only performing arts center in America

that can do work that is this big.

But a week earlier, as captured in news reports, there were jokes and jabs during one of the Kennedy Center's

signature annual events, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, given this year to Conan O'Brien.

Today they announced two board members, Bacher al-Assad, and Skeletor.

We're going to fix it, make it beautiful.

It's been a stunning two months

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