“It’s a frightening moment”: the artists react to the recent targeting of the White House of the Smithsonian institution | Trump Administration

ARist, academics and politicians have shared their indignation in reaction to the last executive order of the Trump administration which aims at the Smithsonian Institution, the largest museum network in the world.

Last Thursday, Trump announced that his administration had ordered a great remodeling of 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 results, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, has had the influence of a divisive ideology and focused on the race”, Light the order.

Trump’s order specifically criticized the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Saam) The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture. The exhibition includes 82 sculptures of over 70 artists at “(examining) the role of sculpture in understanding and building the concept of race in the United States”, second to the museum’s website.

The artist Roberto Lugo, who is present in the Power exhibition, said that it was “frightening” to look at the Trump administration trying to censor his work and others.

“The idea of ​​something I made to be in such an important exhibition and to be targeted by people who manage the whole country,” said Lugo. “It’s a frightening moment because you don’t know if your job will be used to help people understand each other or if it will be used as a tool to further divide people,” he added.

To create his sculpture in the foreground, the study of the revisited DNA, Lugo had to physically enclose all his plaster and rubber body for hours at a time. So it took more than a month to create the finished piece.

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

“I faced violence in my life because of racism,” said Lugo, who is Afro-Latin. “As a child, I was attacked 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 National Museum of African American history and culture (NMAAHC). The museum, which formally opened in 2016 during a ceremony with the then president Barack Obama, was celebrated for his accurate care process of the black American history.

As part of the “restoration of truth and mental health to American history”, Trump ordered his vice -president, JD VanceTo “remove improper ideology” from the museums of Smithsonian, from the educational centers and more.

Trump’s executive order has already sent shock through artistic and museums spaces, while officials weigh how to continue their work with an administration focused on the limiting truth.

Jasmine Crockett, deputy of Texas, shared his frustration for the order of Trump and the widest opposition to diversity and inclusion on social media.

“First Trump removes any reference of the diversity of the present – now he is trying to remove it from our history. Let me be perfectly clear – you cannot erase our past and you cannot prevent us from satisfying our future”, he said in A Placed on x.

The United States representative Steven Horsford has accused the Trump administration of “trying to erase black history and silence conversations on systemic injustice” with this last executive order. “Living the institutions and prohibiting critical conversations, they are rewriting the narrative,” he said in a statement on X.

The lawyer and the lawyer of Ben Crump civil rights underlined how Trump had specifically called the NMAAHC, despite his historical archive work for the benefit of the National as a whole.

“The National Museum of African American History and Culture reveals the truth about the past of our nation. Yet a new executive order plans to remove the” divisive ideology “by the Smithsonian Institution and has identified the NMAAHC”, “. he said On X.

The educators also expressed their dismay for Trump attempts to attack the reference work on American history.

Eddie S Glaude Jr, professor of African American studies at Princeton University, he wrote On X, “and they said they were eggs …”, referring to the alleged attention of the republicans on inflation and on the prices of eggs.

In the comments to Washington PostChandra Manning, professor of American history at Georgetown University, said: “It seems to suggest that if we allow anyone to listen to the entire history of the challenges that the Americans have passed, our nation will be shattered. The American people are not as fragile as all this.”

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

“The exhibition really concerns people’s stories, just like human beings. For some of us, the way in which it appears outside has pushed people to act in a certain way towards us and we stereotypizzed us,” Lugo said. He added: “My work really concerns harmony and showing people as we are the same and how we should celebrate mutual stories. A general general affirmation that anything regarding the race is divisive is really misunderstanding the role of the artists and what we are trying to achieve with our work.”

How and when Trump’s executive orders will take place will remain unclear. Smithsonian has not released a declaration on orders or on how to face the attempts in progress at the federal level to model its content.