As Trump targets the Smithsonian, museums across the US feel a chill
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
By ZACHARY SMALL
Artist Amy Sherald canceled her fall blockbuster show at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery over concerns about whether or how the museum would display her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art abruptly postponed an exhibition of LGBTQ+ artists this spring that was already partly installed, citing fundraising issues.
And the Trump White House called last month for a review of all current and future exhibitions at eight of the Smithsonian’s museums, including several of its major art museums, to assess their “alignment with American ideals.”
“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE,’” President Donald Trump wrote online late last month before the White House released its own list of museum programming it considered objectionable.
Trump said he had told his lawyers “to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities.” There, his administration sought changes by threatening funding cuts and in some cases threatening their tax-exempt status.
It is not only Smithsonian museums — which have long been operated independently but are heavily reliant on federal funding — that are feeling the pressure during Trump’s second term. The president’s moves are being watched with concern by museums around the nation. Some have already changed their programming significantly — and sometimes abruptly — as they try to steer clear of potential hot-button topics including gender, sexuality and race.
“This is not just a concern for select institutions,” the American Alliance of Museums said in a statement decrying the pressures museums have faced in recent months to change or remove exhibitions. “These pressures can create a chilling effect across the entire museum sector.”
There have already been signs of that chill around the country.
In February the Art Museum of the Americas, a small museum just blocks from the White House that is run by the Organization of American States, abruptly canceled two upcoming exhibitions featuring Black and queer artists. The museum offered no public explanation.
Cheryl E. Edwards, the curator of one of the shows, which was to have featured works by prominent Black artists including Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam and Sherald, said the museum’s director had told her it did not want to antagonize the White House after Trump issued an executive order taking aim at diversity programs.
“This is a chill, and an attempt to silence artists,” Edwards said.
Stephen Reily, who founded a think tank promoting innovation in museums after a career leading them, said museums that spent the president’s first term at odds with his policies on diversity and immigration now seem to be trying to fly under the radar.
“If you avoid the red-hot areas, can you be spared?” Reily asked. “Or is there another red-hot area coming ahead?”
Indicators of a chill
Even before the president began his second term, museum directors were concerned about an increasing intolerance for art that tackles political topics or controversial issues. A survey of art museum directors that was administered last year found that 55% saw censorship as a greater threat now than it was a decade ago, and 65% said they have faced pressure to exclude certain works at some point in their careers.
“I think if we did the survey now it would show an increase in anxiety and concerns,” said Jonathan Friedman, the managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN America, which conducted the survey with the Artists at Risk Connection and the Association of Art Museum Directors. Friedman added that the chilling effect on museum programming struck at the heart of artistic experimentation and the historic role of art to occasionally provoke strong reactions in viewers.
In previous years, museums were cautious not to upset progressive audiences. An exhibition on artist Philip Guston was postponed in 2020 by four major museums including the National Gallery of Art. Executives had worried that the artist’s satirical depictions of Ku Klux Klan members would offend visitors in the wake of the civil rights protests that followed George Floyd’s murder. Some critics described the postponement as “cowardly,” and the show eventually opened in 2022 with little controversy.
But nowadays, museums are worried about the reaction from conservative audiences. Arts leaders are closely monitoring the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce arts funding, revoke university grants and exert greater control over the Smithsonian Institution.
“There’s never been this much tension,” said Tom Finkelpearl, a curator and former commissioner for New York City’s cultural affairs department. “People are playing it safe and we’ll never know.”
Exhibitions being changed
When a traveling exhibition that had originally been called “transfeminisms” opened this year at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, it had a new name: “There are other skies.” Works about gender and sexuality by three artists had been cut.
Gerd Wuestemann, president and CEO of Scottsdale Arts, a nonprofit organization that oversees the museum, said the exhibition was not censored. He said that the title was changed “to be less direct and more inviting” and that while logistical issues prevented some artworks from being included, the Scottsdale show still included works by several trans artists and had been executed “as faithfully to its original intent as we possibly could.”
The show’s original curators believe otherwise. “It was exhibited, but in a compromised form that betrayed its original intent,” the curators, Jennifer McCabe, Christine Eyene, Daria Khan and Maura Reilly, said in a statement to The New York Times. “This is the new censorship: not a loud rejection, but a quiet dilution. And it’s just as effective.”
Concerns of censorship
Julie Trébault, executive director of Artists at Risk Connection, one of the nonprofits behind the survey of museum directors, said her organization had seen an uptick in requests for help navigating censorship issues. In the first four months of the year, there were 22 requests for assistance by artists in the United States; last year, there were zero.
“This sharp increase is alarming and points to a rapidly deteriorating climate for artistic freedom domestically,” said Trébault, “particularly for artists engaged in politically sensitive or socially critical work, or those belonging to marginalized communities like trans, undocumented or other minority groups.”
Others are growing concerned as well. The National Coalition Against Censorship and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics have issued a statement signed by more than 150 organizations and 275 individuals stating that “cultural institutions must maintain autonomy over programming choices, curatorial decisions and artistic content.”
“They need the freedom to showcase visionary work that inspires, is unexpected, challenges dominant narratives and questions those in power,” the statement says.