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WASHINGTON ― “Bullcrap.”
That’s what Howard, a retiree visiting the National Portrait Gallery, had to say when I told him about the art show that had just been withdrawn from exhibition there. He was sitting on a bench in the museum when I asked if he’d heard about it. He hadn’t. The more I told him about what happened, the more he just kept repeating, “Bullcrap.”
A day earlier, Amy Sherald, the artist behind the famous 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama, canceled a solo show scheduled for September because, she said, the gallery told her she may have to remove a painting that could anger President Donald Trump. In a statement, the gallery said it “could not come to an agreement” with Sherald on how to present her show.
The painting, titled “Trans Forming Liberty,” features a Black, transgender woman posing as the Statue of Liberty. It’s precisely the kind of image that makes Trump squirm ― and that he’s been bullying the Smithsonian to keep out of its museums across Washington, D.C. In a March executive order, Trump threatened to cut federal funding to the Smithsonian Institution, which encompasses 17 free D.C.-area museums and the national zoo, over exhibits that “divide Americans based on race” or “recognize men as women in any respect.”
