The Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) in Washington, DC, has cancelled two exhibitions due to open this month after US President Donald Trump called for a review of international organisations receiving US funding. The cancellations occurred against the backdrop of Trump doing away with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes at all levels of government, and at organisations receiving federal funding (in response, the Smithsonian Institution and National Gallery of Art shuttered their DEI offices).
In an executive order issued on 4 February, Trump directed his secretary of state Marco Rubio to review all international intergovernmental organisations the US is a member of and provides support to, in order “to determine which organisations, conventions and treaties are contrary to the interests of the United States and whether such organisations, conventions or treaties can be reformed”. Over the next two days, according to reports by Hyperallergic and The Washington Post, the AMA’s director contacted the organisers of the museum’s upcoming exhibitions to tell them their shows had been cancelled.
“This is not a fundraising issue,” Cheryl D. Edwards, the curator of Before The Americas, an exhibition that was to feature 40 works by artists of the African diaspora in the Americas, told Hyperallergic. “This is an issue of silencing DEI visual voices … and discrimination based upon race, caste and class.”
The exhibition, due to open on 21 March, would have showcased works dealing with the legacies of migration, colonialism and displacement in African American, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latino communities. Among the artists to be featured were the sculptor Martin Puryear, who represented the US at the 2019 Venice Biennale; the Mexican American sculptor Elizabeth Catlett—the subject of a travelling retrospective opening nearby at the National Gallery of Art on 9 March; the painter Amy Sherald, famous for creating Michelle Obama’s official portrait and the subject of a travelling survey show opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York next month; and the Cuban Modernist painter Wifredo Lam, who will be the subject of a retrospective opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in November.
“You can’t tell me that the artists I’ve chosen for this exhibit are not top-quality,” Edwards told The Washington Post. “The whole museum is DEI under that definition.”
The other cancelled AMA exhibition, Nature’s Wild With Andil Gosine, was also due to open 21 March and expand on a book by the Canadian artist and professor Andil Gosine, addressing queer identities and the legacies of colonialism in the Caribbean. In addition to Gosine’s own work, it was to include pieces by around 12 artists, including a work by Lorraine O’Grady, the conceptual artist who died in December at age 90.
On 5 February, Gosine told the Post, he received a phone call from Adriana Ospina, the AMA’s director. “'I’ve been directed to cancel your show,’” Gosine says Ospina told him. “There was no explanation.” In a subsequent letter about the cancellation, Ospina wrote to Gosine that “we understand and share your frustration at the challenges presented now”.
The decision to cancel both exhibitions has left the AMA with no upcoming exhibitions listed on its website for 2025. A representative for the museum did not respond to The Art Newspaper’s inquiry about the cancellations; however, the museum's decisions have raised alarms about the possible censorship (and self-censorship) of cultural programming in the US spotlighting historically underrepresented communities.
“DEI initiatives exist precisely because historically marginalised artists have been denied platforms and resources for generations. Defunding these programmes is not just a budgetary decision—it is a strategic effort to erase these communities from our cultural and historical institutions,” Julie Trébault, the executive director of Artists at Risk Connection, an organisation advocating for artistic freedoms, said in a statement. “As this crusade against DEI programmes accelerates, it is clear that these policies are simply a pretext to target voices who stray from the dominant narrative; namely, people of colour, the LGBTQIA+ community or women, and the institutions that support them. We forcefully condemn this assault on artistic freedom, the autonomy of cultural institutions and the diversity of our artistic communities.”
The AMA, located less than a mile from the White House, is run by the Organization of American States (OAS), which promotes development, human rights, security and more in the Americas. The OAS is funded through support from its 34 member states across the region; the US is its biggest funder, providing $55m in 2024, according to The Guardian. The OAS’s structure is similar to the United Nations, with nation states naming ambassadors to the organisation; last December, Trump said he would nominate Leandro Rizzuto Jr, a former executive at the beauty and personal care company Conair, to be his OAS ambassador.
