Former National Gallery Executive Accuses Institution of ‘Soft Censorship’ After DOGE Visit
Steven Nelson, a former senior executive at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., accused the museum of “soft censorship” after it relocated a symposium connected to an exhibition on race in American and Mexican art. The symposium, “Color Lines Across the United States and Mexico,” was originally scheduled for May 2025 at the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), but Nelson wrote that the virtual option was canceled, the program disappeared from the museum website, and the event was moved to Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown. In an essay published in the journal October, Nelson linked the changes to a meeting weeks earlier between National Gallery leadership—director Kaywin Feldman and Secretary and General Counsel Luis Baquedano—and representatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), amid reported Trump-administration pressure on DEI-related programming. Nelson noted that federal funding accounts for about 80% of the National Gallery’s $235 million operating budget and said the move reduced capacity from a 400-seat auditorium to an 80-seat room and limited attendance to in-person only.
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This story was covered in Museum Shakeups, Auction Fever, and Digital Deluges