Art Museum of the Americas Axes Two Exhibitions After Trump Executive Order Banning DEI
144March 4, 2025
Since the January 20 issuance by President Donald Trump of anexecutive orderdeclaring diversity, equity, and inclusion—or DEI—initiatives illegal, theArt Museum of the Americasin Washington, DC, has canceled two exhibitions respectively centering Black and queer art. The institution, which is run by the Organization of American States (OAS), in early February announced the cancellation of “Before the Americas,” a group show curated byCheryl D. Edwardsthemed around the transatlantic slave trade and African diaspora and featuring work by contemporary and modern Afro Latino, Caribbean, and African American artists. Museum officials told Edwards that the Trump administration had withdrawn funding from the exhibition, which had been slated to open March 21 after four years in the works, on the grounds that it was a “DEI program and event.”
That same month, the museum put paid to the exhibition “Nature’s Wild withAndil Gosine.” Also set to open March 21, the show stemmed from Gosine’s 2021 volumeNature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean, which investigates ecology, sexuality, human rights, queer theory, and colonial law in the Caribbean. Among the works to have been shown in what Gosine told theWashington Postwas a “solo show with many artists” were those by a dozen artists, many of whom were LGBTQ+ and of color. Gosine, a Canadian artist and curator who grew up in Trinidad, toldThe Guardianhe was given no reason for the cancellation but pointed to a February 4executive orderin which Trump directed secretary of state Marco Rubio to review relationships with international organizations receiving US funding. Though the OAS is a Pan-American organization comprising more than thirty North, South, and Central American states, it receives the lion’s share of its funding from the US.
“There’s a long history of the arts being attacked by conservative forces,” he told the British publication. “What I’m disappointed about with the OAS is that this is not Trump’s action; this is anticipating. This for me is even scarier because it feels like we have this closeup view to how fascism unfolds.”
Artforum has reached out to the OAS for comment.