Philadelphia arts organizations remain committed to Black art despite Trump rhetoric

Woodmere Art Museum’s director and CEO William R. Valerio is looking forward to the fall debut of “Soul, Sound, and Voice: The Art of Jerry Pinkney.”

Pinkney is the late Philadelphia watercolorist and pioneering illustrator who helped make Black history a part of children’s literature.

“We are proud of this show,” said Valerio, from his Chestnut Hill office. “It is evidence of our commitment to Black artists, and it’s a reflection of our role as an art institution in a majority nonwhite city with a strong Black community.”

In the last decade, art museums from California to New York have curated major exhibits centering the Black American experience, from enslavement through Jim Crow — when racism was law — to the present.

However, President Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office has marked a heightened attack on diversity and inclusion efforts, created to level centuries of uneven playing field.

But in Philadelphia, arts organizations say their commitment to supporting Black art and artists remains unchanged.

“Woodmere is a servant of the people,” Valerio said. “Our visitors need to recognize themselves and their culture in our galleries. This is not something we started doing because it was in fashion; it is something we believe in.”

A growing hostility

In March, Trump signed an executive order pledging to restore “truth and sanity to American history,” explicitly prohibiting “expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”

In other words, suggesting work that illustrates the country’s past cruelties to people of color isn’t worthy of federal funding. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture was named as a target.

At the same time, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency called for the elimination of several grants for arts and museums, leaving grant recipients wondering if they would receive money promised them.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services board has been fired. National Endowment for the Arts grantees were told that new guidelines would prohibit funding for “projects promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Combined, these messages from the federal government send a clear and hostile signal about the value of art, specifically African American art, much of which spotlights the country’s unfair treatment toward its citizens of color and how it still impacts lives.

Not to mention, Black artists — even those who paint landscapes and sunsets — would potentially be labeled DEI artists, insinuating that their work is somehow inferior to that of white artists.

Reflecting the African American experience

Philadelphia enjoyed a trifecta of Black art shows last year: “The Time is Always Now” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Shared Vision: Portraits from the CCH Pounder-Koné Collection at the African American Museum in Philadelphia,” and “Mickalene Thomas: All About Love” at the Barnes Foundation.

Each museum reported an uptick in sales and engagement.

On the eve of the Semiquincentennial — America’s 250th birthday party celebrating the contributions of all Americans — Philadelphia’s art leaders say they are committed to reflecting the entirety of the African American experience in America’s birthplace.

The Barnes “celebrates a range of artists including those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, and those who did not have access to formal art education,” its director of communications Deirdre Maher said in an email. “The Barnes is not implementing any changes; we remain steadfast to our mission and to advancing our program.”

Sasha Suda, director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, spoke of the PMA’s dedication to ensuring Black artists’ work is reflected throughout the museum. Suda pointed to the Brind Center for African and African Diasporic Arts. Set to open in 2026, its exhibits will focus on African artists as sculptors, painters, and crafters of fine jewelry, humanizing Africans beyond anthropological specimens.

“Art is a tool for empathy,” said Imani Roach, curatorial director of the Brind Center. “It imports history through things that happened, and that makes it a powerful tool for teaching the truth.”

Beyond the ‘Black’ in the title

Celebrating Black art also means including artists of color in American art and history shows that don’t have “Black” in the title.

PMA’s ongoing exhibit, “Boom: Art and Design of the 1940s,” features American modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1943 charcoal portrait of Harlem Renaissance painter Beauford Delaney, mounted next to Delaney’s 1945 painting of mid-century author James Baldwin.

“These two [Baldwin and Delaney] are monumentally important artists of the 1940s, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, showing the diversity of the 1940s artistic community,” said Suda.

That diversity in the art world, Suda said, wasn’t always apparent during segregation.

In addition, the PMA will host an exhibit early next year featuring the work of the late African American artist Noah Davis.

Power of art and representation

Trump’s insistence on controlling America’s optics through seizing authority over its art and cultural institutions is proof, many in the art world say, that this administration understands the power of art.

“When people see themselves represented in art in museums, in government buildings, on television, it speaks to their audacity of hope,” said Ashley Jordan, president and CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia. “That is what makes art powerful.”

In February, Trump installed himself as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and fired its longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter. In April, he removed former President Barack Obama’s official portrait from its prominent position in the White House Grand Foyer, replacing it with a painting depicting Trump victorious after the attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pa.

Former deputy director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Kim Sajet stepped down on June 13 as director of the National Portrait Gallery. After a 2018 speech in which she said, “the portrait of America has never fully been only about meritocracy but also social access, racial inequality, gender difference, religious preference, and political power,” she’s been in the anti-DEI contingent’s crosshairs.

“What is the first thing people do when they dismantle a government, a culture, or a people? They take away their voice,” said Lavett Ballard, a Willingboro, N.J.-based collage artist whose work focuses on Black women. Ballard, who also guest lectures at universities, said she’s received few speaking engagements for next year, attributing it to the administration’s attack on DEI.

“We find our voice through education and an understanding of our history. And in erasing art that depicts that history and tells those stories, you are erasing an existence.”

Commitment isn’t easy

Post DOGE cuts, the millions of dollars the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities once gave to arts organizations, libraries, and museums for programming and basic operating costs has been impounded by the Trump administration. Several lawsuits have been filed to reinstate the grants, but in the meantime, institutions are operating on shoestring budgets.

In light of money problems, museum administrators are forced to question whether the commitment to diversity, although honorable, is worth attracting attention from the Trump administration and sacrificing needed cash.

With an annual budget of $80 million and a $588 million endowment, institutions like PMA can continue their mission of diversity without fear of losing federal funding.

However, small to midsize art institutions that depend more on federal grants are trying to be more deliberate in how they write grants, striking words that allude to gender and race. Yes, they are trying to keep a low profile, but they insist they are not backing down on their commitment to diversity.

And like Valerio, who saw a $750,000 IMLS grant earmarked for conservation and storage being rescinded, they are already feeling the pinch.

“We understand and we know it will be hard times coming in the art world,” Valerio said.

Plan B

AAMP’s Jordan, who is no longer factoring federal funding into her $4 million budget, says she refuses to be silent. She’s in the midst of planning AAMP’s Semiquincentennial exhibit, an expansion of “Audacious Freedom: African Americans in Philadelphia from 1776 to 1876.”

“We want to take it to the present day,” said Jordan. In April, she received a letter from the Trump administration explaining that her service on the IMLS board was no longer needed. “When you are in the business of arts and culture through the lens of people of color, you have to have a plan B in your pocket.”

Steven C.W. Taylor, owner of Germantown’s Ubuntu Fine Art gallery, says there has never been a time when Black art wasn’t under attack, and that Black artists can’t become too reliant on federal support.

Exhibited throughout Ubuntu — which means compassion in Zulu — are Taylor’s black-and-white photos of scenes of Philadelphia as well as vibrant works from local artists. Although he doesn’t receive government grants, Taylor said he realizes that grants are important to artists’ survival. But depending on them in this climate, he says, is counterintuitive to the work.

“There is something about depending on a system that didn’t want you to exist to fund work that validates your existence that doesn’t make sense,” Taylor said.

“It’s sad,” echoes Jordan. “We had finally gotten to a time when it was becoming acceptable for us to be who we are authentically. Now we are in a new form of racism. The administration is going through legal means to try and make it right, but it’s not right.”