This Moment in US Art History: CAN Journal, Spring 2025

At press time, it’s come to this: under a new White House administration, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has revised the guidelines for its primary grant program to say funding preference will be given to patriotic art, in the form of projects that “celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring” its 250th birthday, in 2026. The other examples that come to mind when governments have steered the work of artists to serve what they called national interests are alarming. The actions of Augusto Pinochet, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler come to mind.

While celebrating the nation’s birthday is a great cause for artists, and while a new, separate program in support of artists making such work might sound reasonable, even if it’s not your thing, this is not that. The NEA is the nation’s arts funder, and it has been stated out loud that it will favor projects perceived as patriotic in that specific way.

But worse is that the budget for that program was boosted not by adding to the NEA’s budget, but by defunding the agency’s Challenge America grant program. That’s the one that—according to a description now gone from the NEA’s website—was designed to reach underserved communities.

Cutting support for the underserved unravels decades of effort and policy, from the funding level to staffing, to programming, to audience outreach—all good and necessary work, if not without trouble. If art organizations’ staffing and programming has sometimes felt like tokenism, that doesn’t change how necessary the work itself is. Will this idea trickle down to other public funders at the state and local level, which get part of their budgets or all of their permissions from higher levels of government? The Ohio Arts Council and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture seem to be holding strong for now.

Does it seem encouraging that the new president has not proposed elimination of the NEA entirely? He did that the first time he was in office, but Congress—rather than complying—actually increased its budget. The congress currently seems more than willing to give up its power of the purse. Will the president this time use the endowment to celebrate the nation’s birthday while he is in office, and shortly thereafter find reason to propose total elimination? And if so, would this congress defy him? Time will tell.

Conversely, at this moment in art history we see lots of good news for Cleveland artists. Our cover story explores a part of local art history that has been long missing, and which would offend the sensibilities of this president: the Cleveland Museum of Art’s presentation of Karamu Artists, Inc.; Printmaking, Race and Community. Did you know Karamu House once had a thriving fine art print community? The show opens March 23. The museum has also made at least a one-year commitment to presenting Northeast Ohio art at Transformer Station, beginning with the Cleveland Institute of Art’s student, alumni and faculty collaboration, Love Is Resistance (open through April 6). The president might not like that one, either. The CMA / Transformer Station year continues through Summer and Fall with a staff exhibit, followed by works of the FRONT Futures Fellows.

Cleveland-based artists should also be encouraged by Common Currents, a show resulting from collaboration between Artists Archives of the Western Reserve in Cleveland and the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York. The idea was specifically to bring artists and curators from each of those communities to the other, in hope of making connections that could last. The organizers also hope the model—organizations in different cities creating exhibits in partnership—could continue and even proliferate.

These exhibits—acknowledging untold stories, making connections between artists in the struggling cities around the Great Lakes, supporting those around us—have never been more important to strengthening the fabric of our society. We count on artists to keep doing what they do, to saying what they feel needs to be said, to making the images that tell the story of what is happening as this country enters its 250th year.

And we look forward to seeing you.