{"id":187921,"date":"2026-08-13T20:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/187921\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T20:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:17:14","slug":"icom-defends-the-smithsonian-amid-trumps-attacks-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/187921\/","title":{"rendered":"Icom defends the Smithsonian amid Trump’s attacks – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US branch of the International Council of Museums<\/a> (Icom), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to museums that works closely with Unesco, has published a statement supporting the Smithsonian Institution<\/a> in the face of recent political attacks by US President Donald Trump and his administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuseums exist because every generation inherits an unfinished story,\u201d begins the statement<\/a>, published on Tuesday (11 August). \u201cOur responsibility is not simply to preserve objects or recount familiar narratives. It is to pursue evidence wherever it leads, ask meaningful questions and invite the public to engage with history in all its richness, complexity, triumphs and contradictions. Museums exist not to end conversations, but to begin them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement continues to express concern for the future of the Smithsonian, particularly given \u201crecent congressional hearings and actions affecting the Smithsonian Institution\u201d.<\/p>\n

Political attacks on the Smithsonian have been ongoing since Donald Trump<\/a> began his second term as president last year, an effort to suss out \u201cwoke\u201d programming and to whitewash US history. <\/p>\n

Just last month, the director of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History<\/a> (NMAH) appeared before congress and was grilled by Republican lawmakers over a White House report<\/a> that had called the museum not \u201cproudly patriotic\u201d and cited its leadership as having \u201cdenigrated and displaced whites, males, Christians and Americans\u201d. Later that same week, Trump ordered that signage be erected<\/a> outside the NMAH, warning visitors of the allegedly skewed exhibits inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIcom-US expresses its unwavering support for the Smithsonian Institution, its leadership, its governing bodies and the thousands of museum professionals who steward one of the world’s greatest cultural and educational institutions,\u201d the statement continues. \u201cAt moments when the role and independence of museums is called into question, it is important that museum professionals speak clearly about the principles that guide their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement comes a little more than a month after Icom released an updated code of ethics<\/a>, its first in more than 20 years, which explicitly highlights the need for institutional independence. It follows a similar statement of support<\/a> from the American Alliance of Museums<\/a> (AAM), published in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts to politicise how museums present history, art, science, culture and the natural world\u2014and personal attacks on the museum professionals who carry out that work\u2014threaten the integrity and independence of museums across the country,\u201d reads AAM\u2019s statement, in part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand alongside the American Alliance of Museums in affirming the essential role museums play in American civic life and the importance of safeguarding their independence, integrity and public trust,\u201d Icom\u2019s statement concludes. \u201cMuseums do not simply preserve our past. They help us understand it. In doing so, they strengthen our democracy, deepen our shared humanity and help us imagine a stronger future together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US branch of the International Council of Museums (Icom), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to museums that works…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,84449,986,10,65,11,64,44970,985],"class_list":["post-187921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-international-council-of-museums","tag-museums-heritage","tag-potus","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-president-of-the-united-states","tag-president-trump","tag-smithsonian-institution","tag-us-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117090048385806247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}