‘It’s a scary time’: artists react to White House’s recent targeting of Smithsonian Institution

Artists, academics and politicians have shared their outrage in reaction to the Trump administration’s latest executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum network.

Late on Thursday, Trump announced that his administration had ordered a large reshaping of the Smithsonian in an attempt to eliminate what he described as “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology”.

“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” read the order.

Trump’s order specifically criticized the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Saam) exhibit The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture. The exhibit features 82 sculptures from more than 70 artists to “[examine] the role of sculpture in understanding and constructing the concept of race in the United States”, according to the museum’s website.

The artist Roberto Lugo, who is featured in the Shape of Power exhibit, said it felt “scary” to watch the Trump administration attempt to censure his and others’ work.

“The idea of something that I’ve made being in such an important exhibition, and being targeted by people who run the entire country,” Lugo said. “It’s a scary time because you just don’t know if your work is going to be used to help people understand one another or if it’s going to be used as a tool to further divide people,” he added.

To create his featured sculpture, DNA Study Revisited, Lugo had to physically encase his entire body in plaster and rubber for hours at a time. It then took more than a month to create the finished piece.

The creation of art, Lugo said, allows him to “process experiences”.

“I have faced violence in my life because of racism,” Lugo, who is Afro-Latino, said. “As a child, I was assaulted with a baseball bat for trying to play in the wrong neighborhood.” He added: “This was a very therapeutic experience to feel like my DNA is represented in such an important exhibition.”

Trump also condemned the widely lauded National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The museum, which formally opened in 2016 at a ceremony with then president Barack Obama, has been celebrated for its thorough curation process of Black American history.

As a part of the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order, Trump has ordered his vice-president, JD Vance, to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian’s museums, educational centers and more.

Trump’s executive order has already sent shocks through the art and museum spaces, as officials weigh how to continue their work with an administration focused on limiting truth.

Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett shared her frustration at Trump’s order and broader opposition to diversity and inclusion on social media.

“First Trump removes any reference of diversity from the present – now he’s trying to remove it from our history. Let me be PERFECTLY clear – you cannot erase our past and you cannot stop us from fulfilling our future,” she said in a post on X.

US representative Steven Horsford accused the Trump administration of “trying to erase Black history and silence conversations about systemic injustice” with this latest executive order. “By defunding institutions and banning critical conversations, they’re rewriting the narrative,” he said in a statement on X.

The attorney and civil rights lawyer Ben Crump emphasized how Trump had specifically called out the NMAAHC, despite its historical archival work that benefits the national as a whole.

Eddie S Glaude Jr, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, wrote on X, “And they said it was about eggs … ,” referring to Republicans’ purported focus on inflation and egg prices.

In comments to the Washington Post, Chandra Manning, a professor of American history at Georgetown University, said: “It seems to suggest that if we allow anyone to hear the whole story of challenges that Americans have overcome, our nation will shatter. The American people are not so fragile as all that.”

Of his Saam exhibit, Lugo said it is an opportunity for selected artists and the communities they represent to have a chance to share their own experiences.

“The exhibition is really about telling people’s stories, just as human beings. For some of us, how we appear on the outside has driven people to act a certain way towards us and stereotype us,” said Lugo. He added: “My work is really about harmony and showing people how we’re alike and how we should celebrate each other’s histories. A blanket overall statement that anything regarding race is divisive is really misunderstanding the role of the artists and what it is that we’re trying to achieve with our work.”

How and when Trump’s executive orders will take place remain unclear. The Smithsonian has not released a statement on the orders or how it plans to address ongoing attempts at the federal level to shape its content.