I didn’t listen to my family as a child when they told me to avoid becoming the bearer of bad news.
As part of Hyperallergic‘s News Team, I’ve spent much of the last year writing about the impact of President Trump’s policies on the most cherished arts and cultural organizations in the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Throughout 2025, Hyperallergic has also reported on local disputes over artworks that reveal greater insights into a politically hostile year in the United States.
The fast-paced cycle of policy changes, executive actions, and judicial rulings, made worse by Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy, makes it challenging to stay up-to-date on exactly what is happening within art institutions, even for a reporter. That’s why I’ve compiled a month-by-month recap of how US politics impacted the cultural sector in 2025.
What we have learned about the Trump administration’s attacks on artists and arts organizations can be sorted into three categories: politically motivated grant cuts, financial uncertainty, and mounting concerns about the state of freedom of expression as enshrined in the First Amendment.
While some of Trump’s flurry of mandates have stuck, such as a ban on policies aligned with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in federal agencies, other attempts by the administration to limit arts and culture funding have been successfully challenged by the courts. Other impacts remain largely unclear, including whether attempts to issue “content corrections” for the Smithsonian’s 21 museums and zoo had any bearing.
Artists have also stood up in opposition to the Trump administration, including by opposing the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and the crackdown on immigrants, forming free-speech organizations, and leading protests against the president.
Linked below are some of the most representative stories from 2025 that capture the Trump administration’s reach into the arts. And please, don’t shoot the messenger.
January
The Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art, both federally funded, shuttered their DEI departments in compliance with an executive order signed by the president just days after taking office.
Days after Trump’s election, the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, ordered the removal of a For Freedoms billboard featuring a famous image taken during Selma’s Bloody Sunday. The board had ironically contained the slogan “Make America Great Again” as a thought-provoking statement. The move garnered allegations of censorship, the first of many in the coming year.
Februrary
Trump’s DEI order was quickly felt when the NEA, a federal agency funding over a thousand artists and organizations each year, scrapped an award for “underserved communities.”
The agency then added and later quickly deleted a statement on its website stating that the agency would prioritize arts projects that “celebrate and honor the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”
The anti-DEI push may have also influenced the shuttering of a show of artists of African descent and another exploring queerness in the Caribbean were cancelled by the Art Museum of the Americas, as Hyperallergic reported, illustrating the reach of Trump’s crackdown beyond grantmaking organizations. (The show of artists of African descent later found another home at George Mason University School of Art.)
In a move against trans and nonbinary people, the National Park Service scrubbed the “T” and “Q” from “LGBTQ+” at New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, which commemorates the historic 1969 uprising.
March
March was really, really bad.
Small arts organizations in “underserved communities” faced uncertainty following the NEA’s cuts. (Luckily, for some, the Andy Warhol Foundation stepped in to replace a few of these grants following Hyperallergic‘s report.)
Later in the month, Trump signed an executive order vowing to eradicate “race-centered ideology” from the Smithsonian museums, zoo, and research centers, setting off a series of public battles between the administration and the institution.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the NEA, which began asking applicants to abstain from using their grants to “promote gender ideology,” as defined by the Trump administration. A judge later sided with the ACLU and found the requirement to be “unconstitutional” in a September victory.
Trump pushed out Shelly Lowe, the first Native American chair of the NEH, out of her job. (She is now the president of the Institute of American Indian Arts.) He then effectively dismantled the IMLS, a critical grantmaking agency, after determining it was “unnecessary.”
As Trump deported Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum security facility in El Salvador, news broke that some were being targeted by the administration in part due to their tattoos, which the Department of Homeland Security believed to be symbols of gang affiliation. Artists and cultural workers also took to the streets to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student and Palestinian refugee detained for his activism at the behest of the Trump administration.
In Washington, DC, officials removed the Black Lives Matter plaza after Republicans threatened to withhold millions of dollars of federal funding from the city.
And at the end of the month, the Colorado legislature replaced a portrait of Trump that he didn’t like.
Demonstrators dressed up as Handmaid’s Tale characters during an anti-Trump protest in April.
April
The White House began April by replacing a portrait of former President Barack Obama in the White House with a painting depicting the attempted assassination of Trump in a victory gesture.
Then, Trump announced that he would reappropriate millions of dollars in funds from cancelled NEH grants for his sculpture garden of “American heroes.” Yes, that sculpture garden, the one the president first proposed in 2020 to hold 250 sculptures of individuals including Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs.
Around the same time, the IMLS notified hundreds of museums and libraries across the country that their grants, for projects including educational programs and facilities improvements, were being terminated.
May
Following a lawsuit from 21 attorneys general, a federal judge halted cuts to IMLS grants in certain states.
Organizations across the country received emails notifying them that their NEA grants were cancelled in line with the Trump administration’s priorities. The arts agency said it would now prioritize “skilled trade jobs,” “AI competency,” “support [for] the military and veterans,” and the “economic development of Asian American communities.”
The State Department also opened an application for proposals for the U.S. Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, which called for “American exceptionalism.”
Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress demanded an independent investigation into Trump’s impact on the Smithsonian.
June
The president’s 2026 budget proposal excluded funding for two Smithsonian institutions: the National Museum of the American Latino and the Anacostia Community Museum, founded in 1967 with the intent of expanding outreach to Black residents in Washington, DC, drawing bipartisan backlash. Congress still hasn’t voted on that bill yet.
In the realm of immigration, Noweigian tourist Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry to the U.S. after border agents reviewed images on his phone, including a meme of a bloated Vice President JD Vance.
July
Painter Amy Sherald canceled her exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery over her concerns that the institution planned to remove or alter her work “Trans Forming Liberty” (2024), which depicts trans model Arewà Basit posed as the Statue of Liberty.
August
Sherald’s “Trans Forming Liberty” appeared on the cover of the August edition of the New Yorker following news of her show’s cancellation. Shortly after, the Trump administration announced it would conduct a review of content at the Smithsonian to align the institution with the president’s goal to promote”American exceptionalism.”
The White House gave the Smithsonian deadlines to hand over materials, which have long passed. It is unclear whether the Smithsonian cooperated in any capacity.
The administration had released a bullet-point list of artworks it opposed in an executive memo that included works portraying immigrants by Rigoberto González and Felipe Galindo. Another targeted work portrayed Anthony Fauci.
Trump also said the Smithsonian focused too much on “how bad slavery was.”
Hyperallergic learned that the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s Molina Family Gallery closed an exhibition criticized by Republicans four months early in preparation for the United States’ 250th birthday.
Under the Trump administration, arts organizations experienced significant financial uncertainly as grants were slashed by major cultural funders.
September
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch publicly responded to Trump’s demands, defending the institution’s independence but stating that the Smithsonian was conducting an internal review of its content. There has been little public communication between the White House and the Smithsonian since.
Two artists, Nicholas Galanin and Margarita Cabrera, withdrew from a symposium for the exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, citing censorship concerns.
Anticipating the worst, concerned historians and librarians formed organizations to document cultural heritage at risk of alteration by the Trump administration.
Trump’s attempts to control the historical memory stretched into public monuments and parks. At Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia, Trump officials reportedly ordered the removal of a reproduction of “The Scourged Back” (1863), a famous photograph documenting the horrors of slavery.
On September 10, right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth movement Turning Point USA, was shot during an event at a Utah anniversary. In the aftermath of his death, critics of the figure’s political policies on social media, including teachers and law enforcement officers, were suspended and fired en masse. Art history professor Karen Leader was among the professionals impacted when she was placed on leave from Florida Atlantic University over social media posts about the right-wing figure. She now has her job back, Leader confirmed to Hyperallergic.
In a victory in the ACLU lawsuit against the NEA, a Rhode Island judge found the agency’s requirement for applicants not to use their awards to promote “gender ideology” unconstitutional.
October
The Smithsonian Institution’s museums and research centers and the National Gallery of Art closed during the longest government shutdown in US history. Then, Trump fired the majority oversight board for the NEH and the entire Commission of Fine Arts as he forged ahead with plans to build a ballroom out of the White House’s East Wing.
In the month after Kirk’s murder, Hyperallergic learned that a longstanding exhibition of politically engaged artwork at East Tennessee State University would not be invited to return following criticism from Turning Point USA.
November
November began with a Zohran Mamdani victory in the New York City mayoral race with overwhelming support from artists concerned largely by the city’s affordability crisis.
But across the country, the fallout of federal government overreach into the arts continued. A publicly funded Colorado museum was accused of censorship after it did not include a painting featuring anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian sentiments in an exhibition, fueling fears of censorship across the country.
Months after grants cuts first hit, an American Alliance of Museums (AAM) survey of museum leaders found that one-third of US institutions were affected by Trump-related grant cuts. AAM President and CEO Marilyn Jackson told Hyperallergic that the report’s findings “reveal a sector facing systemic stress, not isolated challenges.”
Before Thanksgiving, arts organizations across the country hosted events as part of the Fall of Freedom call for creative resistance to “authoritarian forces,” and cultural leaders testified before the New York City Council about censorship in the arts.
After speculation that Robert Lazzarini and curator John Ravenal would represent the US at the 2026 Venice Biennale, sculptor Alma Allen was named as the pick instead.
December (so far …)
Those canceled IMLS grants cut by the Trump administration earlier in the year were restored in all states after a final ruling by a Rhode Island federal judge.
And last week, a heritage group sued the Trump administration over the construction White House ballroom and the East Wing demolition.
While artists, arts organizations, and the general public have grappled with the fallout of a torrent of executive actions aimed at dismantling federal cultural resources, court victories signal at least a glimmer of hope. And so too does artists’ continuing defense of their First Amendment rights.
Let’s hope that this timidly upward trend continues into 2026.
