‘I was in shock’: DC gallery pulls exhibits of Black and LGBTQ+ artists amid Trump DEI crackdown

A Washington DC art gallery has abruptly cancelled two exhibitions featuring Black and LGBTQ+ artists, prompting accusations that it has caved in to Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

The Art Museum of the Americas, run by the Organization of American States (OAS), was due to present the shows Nature’s Wild with Andil Gosine and Before the Americas in March.

The decision to pull the exhibits coincided with an executive order issued by the Trump administration directing a review of relationships with international organisations that receive US funding. To Gosine, it is an alarming example of pre-emptive capitulation – obeying in advance.

“There’s a long history of the arts being attacked by conservative forces,” the 51-year-old Canadian artist and curator told the Guardian. “What I’m disappointed about with the OAS is that this is not Trump’s action; this is anticipating. This for me is even scarier because it feels like we have this closeup view to how fascism unfolds.”

The cancellation was a crushing blow for Gosine, a professor of environmental arts and justice at York University in Toronto, who put years of work into the exhibition. It was inspired by his 2021 book Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean, which explored ideas about ecology, sexuality and human rights. His preference for working with public institutional spaces led him to the OAS and its Art Museum of the Americas in Washington.

“For three years they have been consistently enthusiastic,” he said. “Every time I proposed something they were quick to write letters of support for it. They seemed very happy up to the day before cancellation; I have all these enthusiastic emails. I don’t think we had one bad word in that time.”

Gosine added: “I have not put more resources or time into any project. This was to be the feather in my cap because it was a very personal project. I grew up in Trinidad; the exhibition was around unpacking a life. The signature image for the exhibition was an image of me at three years [old].”

The show was to include works by a dozen artists from across the Americas, many of them LGBTQ+ people of colour. It was to feature sculpture, photography, video, acrylic paintings, oil paintings and collage including a video installation by the Black artist Lorraine O’Grady, who died in December aged 90.

Gosine used funds awarded to him to keep the budget as low as possible, for example creating work in the US so it would not have to be shipped from Canada. World Pride had selected it as one of their marquee arts events and organised dedicated programming. The opening date was brought forward to 21 March so that a Canadian mission could visit.

But at 9am on 5 February Gosine received a phone call from the museum’s director, Adriana Ospina. “She said: ‘I’ve been ordered to cancel the exhibition.’ She didn’t give a direct reason. I mean, I was in shock. Never in a million years.

“There are lots of challenges to this space; I was prepared to make up for all of them. But there would be no discussion. She alluded to budget restraints at their museum but that was perplexing because in fact they were contributing almost nothing to the show.”

Ospina sent a follow-up letter but it still gave no reason for the termination, Gosine said. But to Gosine there is little mystery. On 4 February Trump issued an executive order directing his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to review relationships with international organisations receiving US funding. The US is the biggest contributor to the OAS secretariat’s budget, giving $55m last year.

“It’s not accidental that on February 4 they get a letter saying, ‘Hey, we might pull out your budget’ and on February 5, they’re like, ‘OK!’” he said. “The quickness of the response suggests to me that this is what I think will be a losing attempt to appease the administration.”

Gosine believes the OAS has surrendered its principles for nothing. “How is an organisation like this one, that’s been so associated with their human rights work more than anything else, going to fit in to a new political order? How smart is it to throw their allies, their communities under the bus for something that will not be successful? I can’t imagine them keeping their budgets, given what kinds of cuts the US administration is making.”

Having planned every inch of the space for three years, Gosine says the show cannot survive as he conceived it, although elements of it will live on in exhibitions and events in Montreal, Toronto and New York. A substantial catalogue was due to go to press last week but will not see the light of day.

Trump’s dismantling of DEI initiatives across the federal government included the closure of diversity offices at the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian Institution as well as the cancellation of a US Marine Band collaboration with young musicians of colour.

He has also taken control of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and installed an acolyte as interim president. There are fears that his ability to threaten funding will help create a new political climate that discourages cultural institutions from engaging with topics related to race, identity and social justice.

Gosine added: “The hardest part of that for me to understand is how people all the way along the line bend to the political tide. I reached out to a few people to get advice on this and I was surprised: there are powerful people who are big critics of Trump but who are unwilling to be uncomfortable. ‘Well, how do I make sure my consultancy contract isn’t at stake?’

“I feel people who have the most to risk are risking it. When I told the artists, they were ready to go to the streets. But it astonishes me how people in power are looking after what they mistakenly believe is a self-interest that will protect just them. It doesn’t work like that. When human rights recede, everything comes tumbling down.”

Another shuttered exhibition, Before the Americas, featured works by African American, Afro-Latino and Caribbean artists, tracing the influence of the transatlantic slave trade and African diaspora. Curator Cheryl Edwards also received a call from Ospina informing her that exhibition would no longer go ahead.

Edwards said the only reason given for the cancellation was “because it is DEI”, telling the Washington Post: “You can’t tell me that the artists I’ve chosen for this exhibit are not top quality. The whole museum is DEI under that definition.”

The Art Museum of the Americas says in its mission statement that it “exhibits, collects, studies and conserves modern and contemporary art of the Americas, in order to promote cultural exchange to advance the OAS four pillars of democracy, human rights, multidimensional security and integral development”.

A spokesperson for the museum did not respond to requests for comment.