Smithsonian Museums in sight: Museums should present Trump government exhibition plans

The US government has exhibitions in several famous museums control unpleasant representations of American history. Before the 250th birthday of the United States next year, it should be checked whether “gaps or partisan” narratives would be distributed from a government perspective, the White House announced in a letter to the Smithsonian Institution, which operates several museums, especially in the capital Washington. Accordingly, exhibition texts, wall labels, websites and educational documents on tone, historical classification and “agreement with American ideals” are to be examined.

Exhibition plans must be presented

According to the government center of President Donald Trump, the museums in Washington are to present concept designs, exhibition plans as well as catalogs and programs of all current views. In some cases, documents must be submitted within 30 days.

Trump’s criticism of museums is older

Critics accuse Trump of having found a real cultural struggle and also restricting artistic freedom or freedom of expression – a reproach that, conversely, also makes political rights left -liberal circles in the United States. Usually, museums under Trump’s predecessors did not have to expect interventions from presidents, but the change of power in Washington has changed.

As early as spring, Trump ordered by decree that museums have worked on historical representations in the sense of the government. The Republican claimed that in the past decade there were “concerted and widespread attempts to rewrite the history of our country and to replace facts with a distorted narrative that is more determined by ideology than truth”.

In the then decree, it also said: “The incomparable legacy of our nation, the freedom, the rights of the individual and the happiness of people driven forward, was presented as racist, sexist, expressly or otherwise unattended with flaws”. The famous Smithsonian Institution was also mentioned as an example at the time.

These museums are affected

From history to nature to art – in a first phase, the following museums must now undergo the announced examination: the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian Anger Museum, the National Portrait gallery and the Complex Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.