President Donald Trump's administration has intensified its efforts to reshape American cultural institutions, raising serious questions about the future of politically charged art. The White House has issued statements criticizing the Smithsonian Institution and demanding reviews of federally funded cultural programs, creating an atmosphere of censorship that threatens artistic expression across the country.
The most prominent example involves renowned Black artist Amy Sherald, whose painting "Trans Forming Liberty" (2024) became a flashpoint in the cultural wars. The artwork depicts a transgender person posing as the Statue of Liberty and was scheduled to appear in Sherald's solo exhibition at the Smithsonian-run National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., in September. However, when the museum indicated in July that it was considering removing this particular piece, Sherald made the dramatic decision to cancel her entire exhibition.
In a letter to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Sherald explained her decision by stating that she had "believed the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life," but that she now felt "conditions no longer support the integrity of the work as conceived." The cancelled exhibition was set to include her famous 2018 official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, highlighting the significance of the lost show.
The White House had already pressured the Smithsonian to conduct a comprehensive review of its materials, suggesting that museums make "content corrections" to align with Trump's vision of American exceptionalism. On September 3, the institution announced it would establish a dedicated team to review its holdings and presentations, effectively institutionalizing the censorship process.
Sherald represents the epitome of America's elite liberal artistic establishment. Her painting "Trans Forming Liberty" was recently featured on the front cover of The New Yorker magazine, and her works have sold for as much as $4.2 million at auction. Yet even an artist of her stature chose self-censorship over the possibility of having her work partially suppressed. The exhibition will now travel to the Baltimore Museum of Art instead of the National Portrait Gallery.
While American artists face increasing restrictions, international artists are stepping up to fill the void. On July 4, Dutch street artist Judith de Leeuw unveiled a monumental 42-meter-high mural in Roubaix, a former industrial city in northern France. The artwork depicts the Statue of Liberty covering its eyes in shame, serving as a powerful commentary on global migration issues.
"I created this piece after witnessing the growing injustice toward migrants worldwide," de Leeuw explained. Her dramatic drone shots of the painting posted on Instagram garnered more than 34 million views by mid-August. Among the responses was the telling comment: "Not sure why American artists aren't doing these murals! Thank you for speaking out." De Leeuw chose Roubaix specifically because it has France's largest migrant population and is also the country's poorest city, making the connection to the Statue of Liberty—originally a gift from France—even more meaningful.
The changing political landscape is already impacting the art market significantly. Ralph DeLuca, a New York-based art advisor and vice chair and global head of pop culture at Sotheby's, wrote in Cultured magazine that ultra-wealthy collectors are rethinking their spending habits. "Over the past decade, the market leaned heavily into identity politics," DeLuca observed. "Today, I'm sensing a pullback. Collectors may no longer resonate with a particular artist's message and no longer want to live with—or even own—the work."
According to DeLuca, collectors in today's less overtly progressive political environment are seeking works that are "classics, or are simply beautiful or technically skillful," rather than those that make political statements. This shift suggests the art market will continue its own process of self-censorship, with Art Basel—the industry's dominant fair brand—holding three of its five annual events in territories that are authoritarian to varying degrees: Hong Kong, Qatar, and Miami Beach.
Despite market pressures, some established artists are finding innovative ways to make political statements. In August, Greenpeace activists unveiled an enormous blood-red abstract painting by Anish Kapoor on a working Shell oil rig in the North Sea. The 96-square-meter work, titled "Butchered," served as a protest against environmental destruction. "Not so long ago, art was radical," Kapoor stated. "All those positions have been occupied. We have to reinvent the practice of showing art in poetic places—like the middle of the ocean."
Kapoor emphasized that "artists aren't makers of luxury goods" and stressed the importance of taking risks rather than getting "stuck in the commercial market." He argued for the necessity of maintaining "deep political commentary while at the same time holding on to the intrinsic reality of the work of art," though he continues to sell his sculptures for significant prices at art fairs.
British writer Dean Kissick, whose critique "The Painted Protest" appeared in Harper's Magazine, argues that the era of commodified political art is over. "The idea that commodified art objects might also be meaningful forms of political protest had been in ascendancy since around 2016 and is by now completely exhausted," he wrote. Kissick noted that there are "few new ideas in art, at its higher echelons, and, more importantly, very little appetite for the radically new from the market or from the institutions or critics."
The contemporary art world appears to be experiencing what Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci described as an "interregnum"—a period when "the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." As political conditions continue to change and censorship increases, the art world faces fundamental questions about its future direction and the role of political expression in cultural institutions.
