‘NOBODY’S COMING TO SAVE US’: HOW U.S. MUSEUMS ARE BATTLING FOR THEIR FUTURE UNDER TRUMP

ARTNET NEWS
APRIL 28, 2025

“President Donald J. Trump made many promises about what he would do on his first day in office. It might have seemed unlikely that he would come for arts institutions that early, but in fact, national museums got caught up in his dragnet against programs ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA), programs he called ‘illegal and immoral’ in a January 20 executive order. Both the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Smithsonian Institution, a nationwide network of museums, scrapped their DEAI offices within a week. That’s just one of many ways the Trump administration has mounted what is widely viewed as an attack on museums and all that they stand for in a democratic society. […]

Experts are unequivocal about this moment’s historic significance. […] ‘I think this is absolute watershed moment,’ said Carin Kuoni, senior director and chief curator at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School in New York. ‘I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it. The assault on civic institutions is so profound and so structural that they won’t recover very quickly. We’re looking at a changed landscape that we can’t quite see yet but it is changing how nonprofits exist in this country.'”

—Brian Boucher, Artnet News