The Organization of American States has canceled two upcoming minority-led shows that were to perform at The Art Museum of the Americas next month, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Just three weeks before they were slated to open, the OAS canceled an exhibit featuring Black artists from across the Western Hemisphere and another highlighting queer artists from Canada. Cheryl D. Edwards, curator of the Black artists exhibition, said the cancellation was a direct result of the order by the Trump administration to remove federal funding for diversity programs.
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order terminating “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government under whatever name they appear.”
Adriana Ospina, director of the museum, called Edwards on Feb. 6 to inform her of the decision.
“I have been instructed to call you and tell you that the museum [show] is terminated,” Edwards said, noting the message from Ospina. “Nobody uses that word in art — terminated.”
The “Before the Americas” exhibit was to feature works by African American and Afro-Latino Caribbean artists documenting the “influence of the transatlantic slave trade and African diaspora across multiple generations of modern and contemporary artists.”
Many of the artists to be featured are from D.C. including Sam Gilliam, a postwar painter specializing in Black abstraction and Amy Sherald, a modern artist known for her portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama. When asked why the art exhibit was canceled, all Edwards received was, “Because it is DEI.”
Another performance called “Nature’s Wild with Andil Gosine,” by a professor of environmental arts and justice at York University in Toronto, had his show canceled in a similar manner.
“I’ve been directed to cancel your show,” Gosine said, recalling his conversation with Ospina. “There was no explanation.”
The performance is inspired by Gosine’s 2021 book documenting queer theory and colonial law in the Caribbean and was to feature primarily queer people of color from Canada.
The OAS was founded in 1948 as a multilateral regional body to encourage human rights, electoral oversight, social and economic development, and security in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. is by the far the single largest contributor to the OAS. Gosine worried that administration’s move will only hinder the organization’s future.
“Cutting these exhibits is going to do nothing to safeguard that contribution,” he said.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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