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by Bill Lasarow August 2, 2025 Georges de la Tour, “The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame,” c. 1638-40, oil on canvas. Courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Nearly a year before it reopens, and the images of LACMA’s newly built David Geffen Galleries have me pining to bring back the old LACMA, or at least a very different new one. I’m old enough to recall William Pereira’s blue collar Ahmanson building. That truly unattractive fountain announced its presence, and the interior’s central atrium featured a vast, empty space that pushed all of the galleries so far out as to make the collection feel like an afterthought. By 1975 the fountain was replaced with a sculpture garden. After that, filling in the atrium allowed for a lot more art to be shown. So that’s what an art museum does! Fortunately, the museum’s current Wilshire Boulevard campus never sunk into the adjacent tar pits as many imagined it would at the first major earthquake (we’ve had two since it opened in 1965). The museum was originally consigned to the basement of the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Mom and her friends were regulars at the Wilshire and Fairfax location — not to consume culture, but to shop at the May Company. That building’s architect, Albert C. Martin, who also designed L.A. City Hall, exemplified the so-called Streamline Moderne style. May Company’s gold cylinder feature on the northeast corner, so awkward as to be memorable, announced you were entering the Miracle Mile much more emphatically than any ordinary sign could have. Now the Saban Building and home to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the survival of Martin’s original gives it an ironic last laugh. As network TV and movie theaters slowly fade away, for someone my age that ridiculous but lovable gewgaw planted on a busy street corner serves as a reminder of a world that no longer exists. I’m grateful that the Saban Building still stands, if only for a little while longer. Those memories are sweet. For younger generations the more likely response may be “what the fuck is that?” View of the new Geffen Galleries from Wilshire Boulevard, facing west. Chris Burden's "Urban Light" is to the left. Courtesy of © Museum Associates/LACMA. My point is that perfection of both design and function has long eluded L.A.’s greatest public art museum, maybe by a country mile. So the present-day trustees, in their wisdom, basically decided to scrap the whole damned thing and start over. But the result strikes me as an aesthetic and civic disaster waiting to happen. I sure hope I am wrong about this new amoeba motel. But these eyes can see and the mind still works reasonably well, and I fear that I am right. Exterior view of the 1965 campus by William Pereira. The view of the original central plaza, which hovered above shallow pools, in 1965. Courtesy of © Museum Associates/LACMA. Once the works from the collection receive their first installation and temporary exhibitions begin a new outline of curatorial purpose, such negative impressions of the empty building may evaporate. We can only hope. But I fear otherwise. Having driven east and west along the Miracle Mile for my entire life, I began to imagine the museum expanding across Wilshire to make use of a nondescript parking lot the day after the museum’s underground Pritzker Garage opened in 2010. An addition spanning Wilshire Boulevard always made sense, particularly with the new Metro station opening later this year. With the Fascist Party currently in control of the federal government and the not-so Supreme Court, we are seeing active stirrings of a highly politicized and aesthetically barren return to a Neo-Classical style that fairly announces its imperial pretensions. I guess we must at least take comfort that Peter Zumthor’s failed solution is still far better than any neo-Speer monstrosities to come. The parade of 20th-century modernist styles is to be thanked for having marched us out of the previous oligarch-ridden Gilded Age. This 21st-century model nonetheless suggests that we have reached a low point in that quest for the new. If the political overwhelms the cultural, Zumthor’s vision may end up looking far more adventurous, even rebellious, than it really is. Or it may descend into the aesthetic demiworld of regimentation and repression that caters to the very worst impulses of fascism. Image of LACMA’s new Peter Zumthor designed David Geffen Galleries, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times. What my eyes see, particularly driving west, uncomfortably resembles the kind of apartment complex I rented in my student days. The new LACMA is hardly a statement of budgetary restraint or populist emotion; those of us who follow such things know the price tag. The fusion of brutalist minimalism and its relentless concrete with the gauzy lyricism of organic expressionism is a too obvious hedging of an aesthetic bet. Radical it most certainly is not. It’s a rehash that promises to feel outdated from the day it opens. And if the museum should ever need to expand vertically, the new building, and squat as it is it has one e-nor-miss footprint, can only stand in the way unless it is, in its turn, entirely demolished. The perimeter curving corridors face floor to ceiling windows. Are we to be seduced by the views of Wilshire Boulevard that will inevitably compete with the art, whatever art is hung on the corridor walls directly opposite? And those street views lack an inspiring expanse. Nor do they even present the Miracle Mile corridor much differently from what we see in our cars. I’ll take instead the escalator ride up nearby Beverly Center and the unfolding view of the Hollywood Hills it affords any day of the week. Image of LACMA’s new Peter Zumthor designed David Geffen Galleries, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times. The extended overhangs along the bank of windows repeat the quote of the kind of low budget architecture that had its day in the decades immediately after World War II, now viewed from inside the building. They mean to allow light in and simultaneously reduce the glare. That diffusion is clearly intended to be a strength. But isn’t the main function of such windows to let in the light? So which way shall we have it? We are given to understand that the potential for any long-term damage caused by the hours of the most direct sunlight will be controlled with the installation of drapes or blinds, thus negating, at least at certain times of the day, even that bit of seduction, and adding a distracting visual element. Then there will be the ever-present option either to look at the art or turn in the opposite direction toward the Big Screen. The prospect that the views of Wilshire Boulevard become the signature image representing the largest encyclopedic museum west of Chicago induce a sinking feeling. At least there remains Chris Burden’s installation of 202 restored street lamps, “Urban Light.” The Director’s plan for the permanent collection is to liberate, or perhaps subjugate, it to regular rotations. Aside from the constant patching of the concrete (which may turn out to be one of the most satisfying visual details of the entire exercise because it will evolve organically), my heart goes out to LACMA’s lighting designers. Perhaps over time both the pattern and presentation of the collection will settle in. Regular museum visitors may be rendered distraught for some years before that happens, however, as they search for beloved works which, once found, may or may not work as well in location A as in location B. Image of LACMA’s new Peter Zumthor designed David Geffen Galleries, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times. Then there are the interior galleries, which feel compressed and oppressively weighty in spite of their high ceilings, which come into the world bereft of natural ceiling or clerestory light. Particularly the smaller galleries, which when empty feel like dungeons, lacking any feeling of liberating openness. I anticipate many great works will sink into the expanse of monochromatic gray and weight of concrete. It is tiresome just to think about. Perhaps once the collection selections are installed the hue and consistency of the background will favor many of the works. The endless gray neutrals of concrete will perhaps prove an asset to how we see and understand beloved masterworks from the Olmec Stone Heads to Georges de la Tour to René Magritte to Robert Irwin. But all must either be attached to these unfriendly walls via ball and chain or stand in the gallery space before them. Robert Irwin, “Untitled,” 1966-67, acrylic on shaped aluminum, 60” diameter. Courtesy of LACMA. The timeline for this new architecture feels flipped on its head. The four buildings that were demolished to make way for Mr. Zumthor’s fiasco-to-be — the Ahmanson, the Hammer, Art of the Americas, and the Leo S. Bing Center — could have been updated and poised to welcome a new addition, not removed entirely for what is about to be foisted on Los Angeles. So, can we go back to the drawing board and take a mulligan? That’s about as likely as getting a redo of the 2024 election. Bill Lasarow , Publisher and Editor, is a longtime practicing artist, independent publisher, and community activist. He founded or co-founded ArtScene Digest to Visual Art in Southern California (1982); the  Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles  (1987); and  Visual Art Source  (2009). He is also the founder (2021) of The Democracy Chain .  In 2025 he relaunched Square Cylinder  with Mark Van Proyen and DeWitt Cheng.

by Liz Goldner July 1, 2025 Violins from Mr. Weinstein’s collection on display in his workshop. Many in his collection had been owned by Jews during the Holocaust. Courtesy of Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Violins of Hope is a collection of magnificently restored violins that had originally belonged to European Jews before and during the Holocaust. The violins, repaired by two Israeli luthiers  (violin repairmen), are used in recitals and concerts around the world to honor those silenced by the Nazis.   Spearheading the project is Tel Aviv-based Avshi Weinstein who founded it with his late father Amnon Weinstein. who passed away in 2024. The father and son team have been bringing the violins to concert level quality for decades. Their mission is to bring back to life the voices of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust through the playing of violins, violas and cellos. Their concerts convey the message of hope and transformation through music. Dennis Kim, Pacific Symphony Concertmaster with members of the symphony’s string section at University Synagogue, Irviine, CA. All images courtesy, Philharmonic Society of Orange County. Violins of Hope traveled to Orange County during the first half of June. They were played in four museums, a university, a concert hall and a synagogue. Performers at these events included virtuoso Pinchas Zukerman and Pacific Symphony concertmaster Dennis Kim. At each event, sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, dozens of magnificent instruments were displayed in the manner of fine art. The events also included informal talks by Avshi Weinstein about the origins of select violins, the people who played them, how they found their way to Amnon’s Tel Aviv workshop after World War II, and Weinstein family stories. The more than 60 Violins of Hope have been played throughout the world, including Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Paris, Cleveland, Nashville, Berlin (celebrating the anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp liberation), Mexico City, Guadalupe and Calgary. The project is next scheduled to travel to Colorado for a series of August events. Avshi Weinstein, Co-Founder, Violins of Hope. The history of Violins of Hope in fact features three generations of Israeli men, all of whom suffered personal losses of relatives, friends and acquaintances to the Holocaust, and who transformed those losses into hope. Amnon’s father Moshe, the first luthier in the family, was in his Tel Aviv workshop soon after the war ended when he was informed that up to 400 of his relatives had been murdered in the Holocaust.   Amnon and Moshe also witnessed the immense suffering of Holocaust survivors in their own homes, communities and businesses. Many survivors moved to Tel Aviv soon after the war ended, and Moshe generously welcomed several of them to stay in his Tel Aviv apartment as they recovered from their death camp horrors. Amnon, born in 1939, was still a child when he witnessed Holocaust survivors grapple with their demons. He was haunted for years by what he saw and the stories he heard from them. Niv Ashkenazi on Violin, Jason Stoll on Piano at University Synagogue, Irvine, CA. In the 1980s a man with an Auschwitz prisoner identification tattoo arrived at Amnon’s workshop with a severely damaged violin that he wanted repaired. Amnon nearly turned him away, but after agreeing to repair it, he discovered within it ashes from the crematoria of Auschwitz. Other Holocaust survivors began bringing their instruments for repair or to donate; these Amnon generously accepted and repaired. He also began documenting the survivors’ stories. In the 1990s, he spoke about his experiences with the violins on the radio and requested that people bring him more instruments for repair or donation. Many showed up at his workshop with violins that they had stored away, relating to him their own and their families’ stories about the death camps. In his book, “Violins of Hope” (2014), James A. Grymes wrote that Amnon had finally decided to reclaim his lost heritage, including violin playing, which has been an important aspect of Jewish culture for hundreds of years. He also met with members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, many themselves Holocaust survivors. Visitors viewing Violins of Hope on Display at Hilbert Museum of California Art, Orange, CA. In the early 2000s, Amnon and Avshi began touring the world with their violins. In 2006, at a concert in Paris, a friend suggested that they name their project, “Violins of Hope.” During those concerts, Amnon began relating to the audience his own and others’ experiences during the Holocaust. Avshi continues to follow his father’s mission, telling many compelling stories about the Holocaust and about his family. One story that he often relates regards the 2008 Film, “Defiance,” which dramatized the real-life adventures of four Jewish resistance fighters in 1941. They hid out in a forest to escape the Nazis, gathered to them many other resistance fighters, and built a school and nursery in their compound. The film’s plot was based on the story of Amnon Weinstein’s father-in-law. In 1975, Amnon married Assaela Bielski Gershoni, whose father was one of the resistance fighters profiled in that film. The story of the Weinsteins and of their Violins of Hope project is more than just a compelling drama, but a moral vision still in the early stages of being shared with the world. Liz Goldner  is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.  Liz Goldner’s Website .

by Margaret Hawkins July 1, 2025 Julien Creuzet, Venice Biennale installation, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Recently a six-year-old girl named Sophie was taken to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago for the first time. Standing in front of a hanging sculpture by French artist Julien Creuzet, she asked the question that must ring most often in the minds of museum goers everywhere: “Why is this an art?”   The question is brilliant, always appropriate. Its brilliance is two-fold. Fold 1: Why do we regard some objects art and the same or similar ones we do not?  Aesthetics , you might answer, but that would be a dodge. Why is Tracy Emin’s unmade bed art and mine is not? Is it more beautiful than mine, or rather, more aesthetically ugly? Ditto, readymades? Is art only art in context and isn’t that terribly classist while pretending not to be? And haven’t we agreed by now that art is for the people? Is every site of disarray involving swirling sheets potentially a work of art? Is everything art, placed in the proper well-lit venue?   Tracy Emin, “My Bed,” 1998. Courtesy of the Tate, London. Here's another question. Can something that is not recognizable as an expressive interpretation of something else be called art? The answer in the world of visual art is yes, of course. We agreed on this well over a century ago. But definitions vary from form to form. Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Wolcott was also an accomplished painter, albeit a traditional one who favored seaside views of his native St. Lucia. He clung fiercely to the idea that the job of art is to represent and interpret the real world. For him, mainly a poet and playwright, this meant representing events, ideas, and emotions with words. Which makes sense, for a writer. To most writers, beautiful words without meaning and subject are pointless. So, Fold 2: Intuitive expert at grammar that she is, six-year-old Sophie placed an article in front of her noun, thereby managing also to interrogate the idea of meaningful distinctions between forms.  Robert Rauschenberg, “Bed,” 1955, oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports, 75 1/4 x 31 1/2 x 8”. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. I am glad these thoughts are being entertained by the youngest generation of Americans. I’m grateful they have enough energy to think about art, and not only about whether there will ever be anything for them to eat, as children today must in some parts of the world. Which brings us to the thoughts of the oldest generation and Donald Trump, art critic, invader, and butcherer of international aid. Our president, who recently celebrated his 79th birthday with a military parade and has established himself a master of public spectacle, has decreed himself arbiter of art. He now decides what plays at the Kennedy Center and what hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. He has expressed a strong preference for realism and patriotic subject matter, in paintings (especially of himself) and in sculpture (as in the parade of statues he has ordered up with NEA money).   It’s amazing to some that Trump is so interested in art, but he at least feigned such interested as far back as when he hung out at Studio 54 and earned a one-line dismissal from Andy Warhol. But it shows how much he knows and cares about gaining power over people’s thoughts. He senses correctly that art, and the freedom it confers, is a powerful rival for hearts and minds. He wants to win, and to do that he’s trying to control human imagination.    Fortunately, in the long run, that’s not possible. Forcing ideas on people is the exact opposite of art. The whole point of art, as much as, indeed more than beauty, is freedom. Freedom plus beauty equals art. To rein in national art institutions and hobble them with capricious rules about what they can and cannot display is not only bad and dangerous. It’s stupid. Stupid because it’s boring and will not hold our attention. Add imagination to freedom and beauty, though, and you get good art, art that people actually want to look at and think about. Add a bunch of laws and policies and bureaucrats and tanks in the streets and old-timey tropes and you get art that is devoid of substances and complexity — you end up with propaganda. What is Trump’s motivation for trying to control our imaginations? What does he want to win? Our love! He wants to make us love him. It’s why he’s so slippery. He’ll do anything to keep us paying attention to him. He keeps changing tacks, changing sides, alternately surprising us with roses and threats. Tim O’Brien, best known as the author of the Vietnam War-themed novel “The Things They Carried,” wrote about the psychology of politics in his fifth novel, “In the Lake of the Woods.” He tells the story of a charismatic but troubled veteran whose fast-track political career craters when secrets emerge about his involvement in the My Lai massacre. Summarizing the psychology of those who run for office, O’Brien writes this: “Politics is a love thermometer.”   The book was published in 1994, but that line could have been written about our current president in 2025. It explains his erratic behavior, based not on principle or pragmatism but on personal need. He’s betting that leading us to the brink of war, then snatching us back, will make him a hero. Everybody loves a hero.   Still from “In the Lake of the Woods,” 1996 film based on Tim O’Brien’s book of the same title. O’Brien’s book is sad and gruesome, not only for the victims. The grunts conscripted to fight a war staged by cynical politicians lost their lives, too, if without literally dying. Now here we are at risk of entering another war.     I keep returning to Sophie’s question, which implies another: Why does art matter? The answer is that it may be the most freeing form of resistance. Margaret Hawkins  is a writer, critic and educator. Her books include “Lydia’s Party” (2015), “How We Got Barb Back” (2011) a memoir about family mental illness, and others. She wrote a column about art for the Chicago Sun-Times, was Chicago correspondent for ARTnews, and has written for a number of other publications including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Art & Antiques and Fabrik. She teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Loyola University. Visit  Margaret Hawkins’ website.

by DeWitt Cheng July 1, 2025 Hands Off Democracy/No King Ocean Beach The tide is turning, finally. The basic numbers: over 2,000 demonstrations, 5-6 million Americans came out to peacefully air their grievances. Many revealed their elite educational background by showing they still know how to participate in a card section. GOP Party Poopers Stayed Away in Droves 50,000 celebrants can’t be wrong; that’s way more than 5 million because he told us it is. We left him alone to play with his toys and new friends. Tank Man Graveyard Dead No more Mister Nice Guys, human scum! Try to rain on his parade and you will be met with overwhelming force and a cabinet that knows how to perform in choral harmony. Heavy Force Promised for Lèse-Majesté The emperor was so well prepared for attacks on his agents of deportation. Turns out that the claim of an revolt was an excuse to begin a military occupation of the blue city, leaving his militia free to squash nannies and strawberry pickers. You were forewarned. Making The World Safe … for whom exactly? It just has to be done every now and then, preferably before elections, so why now? His little buddy Bibi softened the target enough to the gladiator cosplay to waltz in and gobble up as much of the credit as possible for as little result as was produced. DeWitt Cheng  is an art writer/critic based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has written for more than twenty years for regional and national publications, in print and online, He has written dozens of catalogue essays for artists, galleries and museums, and is the author of “Inside Out: The Paintings of William Harsh.” In addition, he served as the curator at Stanford Art Spaces from 2013 to 2016, and later Peninsula Museum of Art, from 2017 to 2020.

by Bill Lasarow July 1, 2025 Vik Muniz, “The Tower of Babel, after Pieter Brueghel (Gordian Puzzles),” 2007, photograph of puzzle pieces, 72 x 96 1/2”. Courtesy of the artist. A defining feature of Trump34’s political method has long been to jump to conclusions based on nothing approaching due diligence. But there is an inevitable second part to it, because usually (not always  to be fair — which he never, ever is himself), his conclusions are wrong. Once proven wrong he dispenses blame and returns to the original falsehood. The third part of this formula is that the false conclusion is not just repeated, it is repeated performatively with increasing insistence. It is this last that is his true talent, and it is a talent that has been honed for more than 40 years. He may have been taught how to do this by the truly malign Roy Cohn, who first tried to obliterate democracy through the vehicle of Joseph McCarthy; but today Trump34 is the unsurpassed master of this style of deception. It is the most singular reason he once more occupies the White House. Today — along with his assault on immigrants living in America and his budget bill now before the Senate — the bombing of Iran once again proves it his aggressive know-nothingism is his primary weapon in transforming the American presidency into a dictatorial perversion of the Founders’ vision. Johannes Vermeer, “The Art of Painting,” 1666, oil on canvas. The irony is that it is also the source of his greatest vulnerability. Let’s review how this is now playing out in the days since the bombing of three major Iranian nuclear facilities. On June 22nd, less than one week ago as this is written, it followed a brief bombing campaign by Israel’s Netanyahu government and at the Prime Minister’s urging, our largest non-nuclear warheads were loaded on a squadron of B-2 Spirit bombers, which dropped their payloads on three underground nuclear facilities. They returned to base with no loss of American lives or hardware. From a tactical standpoint this was a successful operation. Reniel Del Rosario, “Gun Depot” from installation of “Guns, Beauty, Donuts,” 2025. Courtesy of Gallery 16 San Francisco. Also, consider the regime that we attacked. The Islamic Republic of Iran has wielded a barbaric single-party dictatorial theocracy over 90 million Persians for nearly half a century. It is overtly antisemitic and anti-American, and no American or Israeli government has failed to recognize this — though to listen to Trump34 tell his fictitious tale you would think at least the three Democratic presidents during that time collaborated with the mullahs. Thus the explicit snap judgement he delivered on June 23rd, ahead of any assessment based on actual evidence, sounded like great news: total obliteration of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity along with all of its high grade material. This declaration was just as fact free as so many of Trump34’s other past leaps of self-serving faith, starting with the insurrection of January 6, 2021. What crosses the usual ethical and legal red lines is that once facts start to emerge, the original wishful thinking does not change. It becomes dogma and the very yardstick of personal loyalty by subordinates. Kent Monkman, “Resurgence of the People,” 2019, acrylic on canvas, 132 x 264”. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Let me share my personal view of the Islamic Republic, just to be clear: the world would be better off without it. They deserve what both Trump34 and Netanyahu say they delivered, and therefore just hearing those words uttered, in spite of everything done to destroy our Founders’ enlightenment-era project, felt wonderful. My emotional inner voice was all: Gosh, I sure hope that “obliteration” is what occurred. My artist’s eye, however, told me: This looks and sounds all too familiar, let’s wait and see. There is no doubt that the Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), along with Tomahawk missiles released massive destructive power, and that they carried out the strategy laid out by Netanyahu. The damage done to each facility was undoubtedly severe. Mark Bradford, “Mithra”, 2008, plywood, shipping containers, steel, 840 x 240 x 300”. Courtesy Mark Bradford and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joshua White / JWPictures. But that is not what Trump34 has settled on as his narrative. It is that the facilities were obliterated, that the progress of Iran’s nuclear weapons ambition has been reset back to square one. And now, as a result, the U.S. president becomes the great peacemaker, calling for a full ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and the promise that the U.S. will be generous with a vanquished enemy. Needless to say, starting with reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA, which has not been permitted access to directly inspect the bombing sites), the truth is that the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program was extensive but limited, nothing more, since the damage is underground. Further, satellite images have widely reported that a convoy of trucks appeared at the Fordow facility days prior to the bombing mission. The likelihood that the facilities were evacuated along with fissile material and centrifuges may be a matter of speculation, but Iran’s subsequent response, their bombing of an American air base in Qatar that followed their warning to clear out personnel, suggests that a regime that truly belongs in history’s dustbin instead sees the past few weeks as a temporary setback, not an existential threat. Bill Lasarow , Publisher and Editor, is a longtime practicing artist, independent publisher, and community activist. He founded or co-founded ArtScene Digest to Visual Art in Southern California (1982); the  Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles  (1987); and  Visual Art Source  (2009). He is also the founder (2021) of The Democracy Chain .  In 2025 he launched Square Cylinder  with Mark Van Proyen and DeWitt Cheng.

Ginny Stanford, “Portrait of The First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton,” 2006, acrylic on canvas, gold leaf on wood, 108 x 81 1/4”. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. On March 28th the world awoke to a refreshing op-ed in the New York Times. Hillary Clinton, who has been mostly absent from the political stage in recent years, skewered the by-now infamous Signal group chat in which highly placed government officials discussed their plan to bomb the Houthis in Yemen. Incredibly, the text chain included not only Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, but also, by some fluke, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Discussing war plans on a platform as insecure as Signal, even without copying a journalist, constituted a monstrous security breach that endangered the lives of American servicemen and women.     Clinton was uniquely qualified to comment. Investigation into her own milder security breaches probably lost her the 2016 election. That exaggerated scandal inspired multitudes to chant “Lock her up!” every time her name was mentioned. The refrain seems even more ridiculous now. (Note that the same crowd is not calling to lock up Hegseth, despite additional, earlier accusations of sexual assault.)   Andres Serrano, from exhibition “The Game: All Things Trump,” 2019, fake dollar bill signed by Donald Trump showing Hillary Clinton behind bars. Courtesy of the artist. For a moment, the old acerbic, hyper-articulate Clinton resurfaced. Her brief return made me remember why I love her, despite all the reasons not to. For starters, she’s such a good writer. Her lead: It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me it’s the stupidity.    I miss that voice. Hearing it again pains me, makes me think what a waste it was, and is, to lose the brilliant leadership she offered. It was there for the taking but for James Comey’s last minute reopening of the investigation into her emails, plus maybe a missed campaign stop in Michigan and qualms about her “style.” (Read: being female.) Sure, she had baggage and not only her emails; but her opponent’s baggage exceeded hers many times over. In retrospect, Clinton’s seems like the lightest of carry-ons compared to what came next.  Video clip of UNCF  public service announcement: A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Reading her piece, a particular sorrow descended on me at the thought of what might have been. It wasn’t only sorrow for every terrible thing that’s happened in this country since Trump’s second inauguration, though there’s that. It’s also sorrow for the waste of one woman’s full potential, what it could have meant for the world. Maybe, too, my pain was compounded by the project I was working on that morning. I’m revising a book about my sister, whose life was derailed by schizophrenia. Reliving that story makes me think of the derailed lives of so many that have been sidelined and silenced, especially women. But schizophrenia is an incurable disease that results in lives that don’t fully bloom. It’s terrible to think that natural human ability is far more often sidelined by choice and prejudice — racism, antisemitism, sexism.   Of course, people have treated each other unfairly throughout history. Power and opportunity have never been distributed evenly. And Clinton has lived a life of extraordinary privilege and accomplishment. Being underestimated is nothing compared to the cruelties visited on whole populations, few of them among the upper class. But her unique case makes me think of women in general, possibly the single largest brain-drain in history. Hillary contributed much. But as president of the United States, she could have done far, far more, for far, far many more of our own citizens and people throughout the world.   Some will remember the public service announcements from the United Negro College Fund that ran on TV in the 1970s and ‘80s: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” It still holds true.  Yoko Ono as a witch with John Lennon at the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, 1968. Hillary’s brief reappearance recalls another controversial and powerful woman who has returned to the news lately, a woman also connected to an even more powerful man. Yoko Ono, now 92, is seemingly everywhere these days. Her retrospective, “Music of the Mind,” closed at the Tate Modern last fall and is coming to Chicago in October 2025. “One to One,” a new documentary about her life with John Lennon has just been released in a few theaters and will be available on streaming soon. Fifty years after her villainization, Ono’s image is under repair.    Ono, you will remember, was castigated for supposedly breaking up the Beatles. She was derided for stridency and aggressiveness and weirdness, for being a conniving, ambitious woman who emasculated and domesticated her rock star husband. She was characterized as a kind of sorceress who put Lennon under an evil spell. The documentary argues that, if anything, Ono was responsible for delaying the band’s inevitable breakup. She grounded Lennon, it claims. If not for her, he would have left sooner.  “One to One” presents a picture that was always clear to anyone who followed their story. Lennon wasn’t kidnapped. He chose to be with Ono. He loved her talent. He wanted a creative partner, not another fan. In many ways he was a true male feminist, despite his myriad personal problems. He wasn’t especially nice. But he always defended her. He acknowledged her as his collaborator, an edgy and successful artist before she ever met Lennon, who was seven years her junior. Perhaps it was this level of talent and success that was most threatening to a public accustomed to seeing male rock stars hanging out with smitten groupies. Race prejudice didn’t help.  Francisco Goya, “Witches’ Sabbath (The Great He-Goat),” 1821-23, oil on canvas, 55 3/8 x 171 1/2”. Courtesy the Museum del Prado, Madrid. But that was 50 years ago. Not enough has changed. A woman like Ono was dangerous then and she still is — too smart, too independent, too powerful, too outspoken. In a promo clip advertising the movie’s release, young Ono sums up public sentiment: “I used to be considered a bitch in this society. Since I met John, I’ve been upgraded to witch.”     Right. Blame a woman’s talent on dark supernatural powers. Promote bitches to witches. We know what happens to them. Margaret Hawkins  is a writer, critic and educator. Her books include “Lydia’s Party” (2015), “How We Got Barb Back” (2011) a memoir about family mental illness, and others. She wrote a column about art for the Chicago Sun-Times, was Chicago correspondent for ARTnews, and has written for a number of other publications including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Art & Antiques and Fabrik. She teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Loyola University. Visit  Margaret Hawkins’ website.

Raphael, “The School of Athens,” 1511, fresco, 18 x 25’. Courtesy of The Vatican. The horizon is necessarily one of the most venerated symbols in the long history of visual art. It is unavoidable because of its reality and ubiquity; as soon as you depict a landscape you must deal with it. Make no mistake, its common appearance does not render it a trivial element or a dull subject or an exhausted metaphor. The landscape represents the inevitability of history unfurling relentlessly into the future rather than settling into some static post-historical “utopia” despite the likes of Hegel and Fukuyama. Art’s task manifests on one level with time and the organic give and take of aesthetic thinking and intuition. Theories are worth spinning, but the individual creativity of many thousands of artists offers enormous weights of evidence both for and against. As artists, we observe the most intimate minutiae, up close. Lift you eyes just a few inches from that patch of dirt, that bug or flower … and you encounter the horizon, off in some distance, sometimes dramatically there and other times shrouded into near invisibility. Without looking directly, what is there to visualize in that space beyond the horizon? I can’t help myself, my physical eye and mental imagination cannot stay away from the horizon because I feel a need to wander beyond it. The close and the familiar are of interest, but more for relief than for sustained attention. Besides, I did that for about 20 years. I’ve been applying what those years taught me ever since, and, trust me, I stopped fearing the proverbial blank canvas a long time ago. With age fear either melts away or it rules your every waking hour. J.M.W. Turner, “Rain, Steam and Speed,” 1844, oil on canvas, 35 3/4 x 48”. Courtesy of the National Gallery, London. I understand that some of us are born one way, some another. But it is fungible. How you are raised, the always accumulating sum of one’s experience, naturally shapes and reshapes that raw material. But I also say, the vast majority of our species continues to waste its opportunity at life. We get, at most, about a century on a planet that has been around for 4.5 billion years, in a universe that has been around for 14.5 billion. What is the meaning of that slice of time? I pray that we never stop wrestling with that question. Most of us who are privileged to lead a life of comfort and security understandably keep our eyes on the visible path to prosperity, and some also seek the recognition of our fellows. But how many focus on, truly pay attention to the horizon? Artists are disproportionately drawn, sucked into the never-visible realm beyond the horizon. Georgia O'Keeffe, “Sky Above Clouds IV,” 1965, oil on canvas, 96 x 288”. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have long subscribed to the school of art that says, risk is inherent in that tendency. But that is exactly where the pungency of the well-lived life takes place. It is where we fully awaken. It is where most of the great adventures take place, in that Great Unknown. If you happen to be hungry for it, you must first have a thirst for freedom and autonomy, and above all you must have a tolerance, if not a taste, for risk and mystery. Trevor Paglen, “Chemical and Biological Weapons Proving Ground, Dugway, UT: Distance approximately 42 miles, 11:17am,” 2006-07, C-Print, 40 x 40”. Courtesy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And that, dear friends, is why the art world matters so much today. The calculations of ordinary politics are secondary to the aesthetics of the creative life well lived. Without those principles and the mental fortitude to maintain them, we would live in a land filled solely with high-end trinkets. The images I have included here are some of the most consequential that our culture has produced. They serve to demonstrate the role the horizon plays, in all of its many variations, in some of visual art’s highest achievements. Serious artists know their art history, or are hungry to learn about it if they come late to the game, and so do their homework with hunger rather than duty. They pick and choose their visual mentors mostly (not solely, and that’s important) in the context of our great museums. Those museums must lead the way because they have the goods. But the path to get where we need to go, inspired as it is by their public leadership, is not straight and sure. That latter point is so very important; both people and institutions, if intellectually and morally resilient, will ultimately benefit from a shakeup and questioning of assumptions. Bill Lasarow , Publisher and Editor, is a longtime practicing artist, independent publisher, and community activist. He founded or co-founded ArtScene Digest to Visual Art in Southern California (1982); the  Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles  (1987); and  Visual Art Source  (2009). He is also the founder (2021) of The Democracy Chain .  In 2025 he launched Square Cylinder  with Mark Van Proyen and DeWitt Cheng.

= Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.   — Emma Lazarus, from “The New Colossus,” 1893, mounted on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. All photographs of the April 5th Hands Off! demonstration in Santa Ana, courtesy of Ken Forbes. Attending a “Hands Off” rally in Santa Ana, California on April 5 — one of 1,400 mass action demonstrations across all 50 states that day, all protesting the Trump administration’s toxic policies and overt corruption — I carried with me a deep sense of frustration knowing that our country was already in a constitutional crisis. And that ongoing crisis was certain to affect my own life and the lives of my family members, friends and so many of the people in my extended community. Yet as I met and talked with several of the thousands of attendees at the rally — people of all ages, races, cultures and sexual orientations — my frustration turned into understanding, a reassuring sense that our nationwide community of protestors will ultimately defeat the evil actions of our present government. On balance, then, I found the rally to be healing. I realized that when people unify and support each other, they empower each other to become courageous protagonists in an unshakable force for justice. I also realized that, while court cases against this administration are important, public demonstrations attended by numerous proactive people are essential to our recovery of democracy. The rally at Sasscer Park in Santa Ana was organized by a coalition of organizations, some nationally based, others local. Among those is Indivisible, “a progressive grassroots movement of millions of activists across every state, fueled by a partnership between thousands of autonomous local Indivisible groups and a national staff.” They are pledged to be pro-democracy, to fight fascism, and to work to defeat the Trump agenda and elect and influence local, state, and federal leaders who reflect their constituents' values. More than a dozen people spoke at the rally. My Congressman, Dave Min (D, CA-47), lucidly criticized the administration’s approach to governing. “I am proud to be joining my friends and neighbors in telling Donald Trump and his minions to keep his Hands Off our democracy, our constitution, and lifeline programs like Social Security and Medicaid,” he said, while encouraging chants from the crowd exclaiming, “None of this is legal.” Min also criticized Trump’s tariffs for tanking global markets, putting more economic pressure on working Americans and threatening retirement savings. “People are freaked out right now,” he said. “So where is Donald Trump? Where is our president?” “Golfing!” the crowd shouted back. Other speakers from the formerly red Orange County addressed cuts to public education, healthcare access, Social Security and Medicaid, veterans’ rights, labor rights, deportations without due process, and more. All insisted that the survival of our democracy is essential. An invocation was given by Pastor Beth Chairavalle of First Christian Church of Orange. “Though I am a Christian,” she said, “I recognize that we are a movement of every faith and creed, all of whom are equal in the eyes of creation.” The huge crowd then observed a few moments of silence with personal prayers. Event coordinator/Indivisible Orange County lead organizer Amy Stevens followed, offering her own comments on faith, then led us in singing our National Anthem. One rally attendee told me that while our country is moving in the wrong direction, being there helps dispel his personal frustration and sense of loneliness in our world today. Another expressed dismay at our country’s loss of so many valuable services and relief at being able to share his feelings at the rally. A third attendee said that he came to the rally to protest the growing oligarchy that is destroying our country with their personal greed. Photographer Ken Forbes, who took the photos of the rally that accompany this article, has been demonstrating against Trump since his first term as President. “But Trump 2.0 has been mind boggling,” he says. Forbes was also instrumental in helping form the Orange County branch of Indivisible. The many demonstrations he attends connect him to a larger community of activists. Two weeks later I attended a National Day of Protest in Laguna Beach. Flanked by throngs of tourists on a sunny Saturday afternoon, several hundred people carried to the Main Beach location their clever home-made signs, along with their resolve to defeat Trump’s illegal and immoral actions. The energy, determination and comradery of the participants in the historic art community was echoed by the numerous cars honking their horns in support as they drove along PCH. I talked with a number of attendees at that rally as well. One aspect of conversation was fervent expressions of anger at Trump’s defiance of Federal and Supreme Court orders, most recently, his refusal to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home from an El Salvador prison. Another topic was the ardent belief that as more and more people join these protest movements locally and nationwide to demonstrate their opposition to Trump, we will remain on the right track to defeat him and his policies. A few participants discussed the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Presidential Immunity ruling, that the President is immune from criminal prosecution for all "official acts." The demonstration became a forum of concerned citizens who were determined to save our country from tyranny. David Brooks wrote in the New York Times  on April 17, “I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now. Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life.” Brooks added on the PBS Newshour  on April 18, “If you look down through history, there have been social movements, these kinds of civic uprising that have succeeded.” Our country thrives when we the people realize that we are the leading protagonists. Then, based on determination and unity, we take bold actions to ensure a thriving democracy that supports and nurtures all residents, citizens or not. The Statue of Liberty, that “Mother of Exiles,” shall prevail. Liz Goldner  is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.  Liz Goldner’s Website .

“The annual carbon emissions of the global art market has been estimated at 70 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2021 by the environmental arts charity  Julie’s Bicycle . That is more than the national emissions of several European countries, such as Austria or Greece.” — Joe Ware , The Art Newspaper, October 11, 2024 Walter Kitundu, “San Francisco Bay Area Bird Encounters,” 2010, benches and mural: plywood, ink and plastic, benches, 56 x 18 x 20”, mural, 96 x 312 x 2”. Courtesy of the SFO Museum, Terminal 2, San Francisco. Art criticism today regularly focuses on the relationship between carbon footprints and the international art world. From coverage about publicized environmental protests that vandalize museum objects to quantifiable reports that measure the environmental cost of globe-trotting art-star events, art journalism has its eye not just on art, but on its ecological effect on the world. Put in less abstract terms, every round-trip ticket flight between New York and London, New York Magazine  reports, “ costs the Arctic three more square meters of ice .” This statistic is catastrophic for any market that is reliant on global mobility. Until airlines discover an alternate form of fuel powerful enough, sustainable enough, and affordable enough to divest entirely from fossil fuels, however, the industry is stuck in the hot seat. Not that you can tell from the outside. Airports are getting more and more upgrades, as though — and despite offhand slogans and advertisements through which airlines announce their aspiring carbon neutrality — the emphasis is rather on a “ seamless, personalized [airport] experience ,” designed to eclipse any doubts about one’s complicit belief in air travel. Art, in these settings, often serves a similar purpose.   Ricardo Alvarado, “Farmworker Cirilo Alvarado (1906-85), Ricard Alvarado’s Older Brother, Drives a Tractor,” c. 1950s, archival pigment print. Courtesy SFO Museum, Terminal 3, San Francisco; © Janet Alvarado. In recent years, airports have rebranded themselves as high end malls and art venues — as though a space designed for waiting has been transformed into a space of diversion, a space with more and more, usually locally produced art. The SFO Museum, for instance, currently has twenty-three ongoing and ephemeral exhibitions situated throughout the airport, and organized by category: General Exhibitions, Aviation Exhibitions, Photography Exhibitions, Student Art, Video Arts, Harvey Milk Exhibition, and “Kids’ Spot.” These range from a continuous interactive mural of birds by Walter Kitundu, “ San Francisco Bay Area Bird Encounters ,” to a series of pre-security vitrines dedicated to decorative tiles, “ California Decorative Tile ,” to a solo photo show, “ Ricardo Alvarado: Capturing a Cultural Legacy .” These shows vary greatly but all serve San Francisco Airport’s mission to delight and captivate the global viewer, while celebrating aviation and local Bay Area history. Certainly the exhibitions provide thoughtful opportunities for engagement — slot machines, for instance, or photographs of famous local music events. Yet one can’t help but feel like they could go further, particularly in relation to the engine driving the framework. If artists protest the TATE Modern without placing its exhibition program at risk, can artists protest the airport without endangering its programming? To what extent is criticality possible? Currently at SFO Museum’s Harvey Milk Terminal space is an installation dedicated to The AIDS Memorial Quilt , an initiative spearheaded initially in San Francisco during the 1980s in the face of inadequate government response to the epidemic. The quilt was initiated by Cleve Jones, who co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation upon realizing that over 1,000 San Francisco residents had died of AIDS-related causes without public acknowledgment. Because it is a marker of local history, perhaps this show gets a pass. Or, more cynically, the dedication of the Milk Terminal, as part of a $2.5 billion project, is leveraged to whitewash the industry’s complicity in petroleum consumption. No matter how energy efficient the building itself is, airlines pollute the region and the world at large.   Various Makers, “AIDS Memorial Quilt, Block 0003,” 1987. Courtesy of the National AIDS Memorial. Chicago’s O’Hare Airport also presents exhibitions which are similarly exclusive to passengers, most of whom have not come to the airport for an art experience. Indeed, the City of Chicago debuted a $3.5 million dollar art commission (the city’s largest art acquisition in 30 years) featuring a curated collection of mid-career Chicago artists in Terminal 5. The curatorial team behind this endeavor, Behar X Schachman, installed a series of vitrines along the arrival corridor which disembarking passengers must pass through on their way to immigration. The corridor is often crowded with people waiting to be processed and admitted into the country. As the curators put it, “The corridor is a space made of expectation, you are almost somewhere, you are almost in customs, almost outside of the airport, almost in Chicago, almost on ‘the other side.’” In “Untitled (A Window for Lake Michigan),” Assaf Evron installs a window of lush, blue hanging curtains, open in two places to reveal the backdrop of Lake Michigan. You might imagine you were looking upon the real lake, except for a third framed photograph hung on the curtain that reveals the image for what it is, calling attention to the photograph’s stillness. “Mayumi Lake, Shinsekai Yori (新世界より) | From the New World” is a lush collage evoking a figure swimming in clouds, depicted in flowers native to Chicago and Japan. Assaf Evron, “ A Window to Lake Michigan,” 2023, dye sublimation print on aluminum, velvet curtains, framed photograph, 20’ x 8’ x 3’. Courtesy of the artist. Maryam Taghavi’s “Spell for Passage” and Hương Ngô and Hồng-Ân Trương’s “chân trời foot of the sky” both afford spiritual protection to the travelers waiting to arrive. Other works address the idea of walking together and celebratory inclusion, as with Selina Trepp’s vibrantly colored animation, “We Walk Together at O’Hare,” and Cecil McDonald Jr.’s large black and white photoscape of a dance hall crowd, “I Wonder As I Wander.” These works do not call out the fossil fuel industry, but they do leverage the political tensions underlying the pre-immigration corridor not only to welcome travelers from wherever they hearken from but to question further the protocols and standard restrictions categorizing ideas of national belonging. Subjected to a second Trump presidency, we face the impact of Project 2025 , a 900 page policy wish-list that self describes as a “transition project that paves the way for an effective conservative Administration” to “take down the Deep State and return the Government to its people.” Agenda items include banning biological males from women’s sports, “unleashing American energy to reduce rates,” and cutting the growth of government spending to “reduce inflation.” Selina Trepp, “We Walk Together at O’Hare,” 2023, animation loop, public art installation a Chicago O’Hare Airport. Courtesy of the artist. We now are dealing not only with the undermining and firing of professional civil service staff at a number of key agencies, but further expansion of extractive fossil fuels for the sake of short-term profit (the U.S. is already the world’s leading oil producer). In this regard I am not interested in SFO’s $2.5 billion Terminal 3 West modernization project, nor a personalized and seamless airport experience, one that lulls with its over-bright, hyperactive screens, bespoke handbags, and similarly placating installations that suggest things are normal; they most certainly are not. Rather, these venues should be used to their fullest potential, perhaps in the spirit of O’Hare’s Terminal 5. More importantly, art at the airport can serve to remind us how precious and precarious our world is. Art at SFO, or any hub airport, that tasks itself with raising that awareness helps to promote environmental care, so that we might keep our ice caps from calving. Caroline Picard  is a writer, publisher and curator. Her writing has appeared in Artslant, ArtForum (critics picks), Flash Art International, and Paper Monument, among others. Fiction and comics appear under the name Coco Picard. Her first graphic novel, The Chronicles of Fortune, was published by Radiator Comics in 2017. She is the Executive Director of the Green Lantern Press—a nonprofit publishing house and art producer in operation since 2005. Curating exhibitions since 2005, Picard has worked with artists like Takahiro Iwasaki, Ellen Rothenberg, Edra Soto, Xaviera Simmons, and others, presenting exhibitions at La Box ENSA Bourges, Gallery 400, The Hyde Park Art Center, Vox Popuili and more. More at her website,  cocopicard.com .

Paul Klee, “Swamp Legend,” 1919, oil on cardboard, 19 x 16”. Courtesy of the Stádische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. This was among the over 700 works included in the Nazi exhibition “ Entartete Kunst ,” 1937. The Musée National Picasso Paris recently opened the exhibition, “ ’Degenerate’” Art: Modern art on trial under the Nazis .” It evokes the 1937 show of “ Entartete Kunst”  (degenerate art in English), displayed in Munich and several other German cities. The exhibition featured 740 avant-garde artworks by 100 artists, all confiscated by Hitler’s regime. Those modernist artworks were condemned by the Nazis as being, “produced by ‘idiots,’ the ‘mentally ill,’ ‘criminals’, ‘speculators,’ ‘Jews’ and ‘Bolsheviks.’” With its exposure under the umbrella of mockery and disdain, the Nazis presumed it would “… pave the way for a ‘healthy’ art in the image of the German race.” With the inclusion of stellar modernists such as Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz, Vassily Kandinsky, Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, André Masson, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and many others, the show, attended by more than two million visitors, was a blatant political attack on culture that ultimately backfired. It also revealed Hitler’s revenge against the modern art world (which had rejected his own artistic efforts), in part by installing the so-called "degenerate" paintings and sculptures carelessly and crookedly on walls covered with graffiti that was originally of the artists’ own making. Does the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion, and its early forays into cultural dictatorship, augur the same attack on contemporary culture? Will Washington D.C.’s esteemed Smithsonian Institution, owned and operated by our federal government, undergo a similar fate as that of the "Degenerate Art" exhibition? While some of the Smithsonian’s 17 D.C.-area museums, including the National Air and Space Museum, are kid-friendly and not particularly identified with liberalism, others likely offend President Trump and his minions. These include the Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the American Indian, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The latter is currently exhibiting “Osgemeos: Endless Story,” by Brazilian twins Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, who are known for their distinctive graffiti style. OSGEMEOS (Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, “Retratos (Portraits)” from “Endless Story” exhibition, 2023-24. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. When I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) a few years ago, I toured its extensive historical display. That installation detailed in words and images several centuries of forced transport of Africans to the United States and to European countries. It also related how slaves ultimately claimed their own freedom, while also helping to define our country’s ideals of liberty, justice and democracy. A current exhibition at NMAAHC, “In Slavery's Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World,” describes how slavery helped shape our world today. Yet, considering President Trump’s effort to eradicate D.E.I. and his recent seizing of the Chairmanship of Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Performing Arts Center, his administration might revise or dismantle the show at the NMAAHC. Daniel Minter, installation detail included in “In Slavery’s Wake,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. Courtesy of Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times. Similar oppression might be brought to bear on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. With three facilities, one on Washington D.C.’s National Mall and two others in New York City and Maryland, “The National Museum of the American Indian was established by Congress to rectify our nation’s historical amnesia about the role of Native Nations in the making of modern America,” according to the museum's website. That reality remains dramatically different from the national mythology that took form around the narrative of Manifest Destiny. As with the goals of the January 6th insurrectionists, the reality-based Indigenous narrative is now in harm’s way. “Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations” is currently on view at the D.C. venue. The exhibition focuses on the unfortunate circumstance that, while most Americans learn about our Founding Fathers, we are told very little about the plight of the Indigenous people who were forced to relinquish millions of acres of lands to the United States. Approximately 368 treaties were negotiated and signed by U.S. commissioners and tribal leaders from 1777 to 1868; yet our government did not recognize or honor most of those treaties. Lexey Swall, view of “Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations,” exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. Courtesy of The New York Times . Indeed, high school history classes barely teach how the Manifest Destiny movement of the 1840s was less the Word of God and more the seizure by force of Indigenous land by white settlers. After about 20,000 years living in North America, Native Americans throughout the continent suffered a genocide. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, also on the National Mall, owns and exhibits contemporary and modern work by hundreds of prominent artists from the U.S., Europe, Asia and beyond, much of it from the 20th century. Numerous surreal, abstract and in-your-face artworks are on view, pieces that would likely have greatly offended Hitler, and no doubt offend President Trump in the year 2025. Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2)” (1912) is a cubist-futurist inspired painting, conveying motion by a nude rather than presenting the nude in its traditional repose. The painting was one of the most controversial artworks at the New York Armory Show of 1913, with one critic calling it “an explosion in a shingle factory.” Marcel Duchamp, “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2),” 1912, oil on canvas, 57 7/8 x 35 1/8”. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Another provocative artwork at the Hirshhorn is André Masson’s “Legend” (1945), a surreal and cubist painting by the artist most closely associated with automatic drawing and altered states of consciousness. Among numerous other artists at the Hirshhorn are Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Alice Neel. The latter is known for paintings expressing her commitment to social justice and civil rights, and also for her portraits of counter-culture people from the 1920s right up until her death in 1984. A recent Washington Post  article reported that Washington D.C.s Art Museum of the Americas, run by the Organization of American States, “… has canceled two upcoming shows one featuring Black artists from across the Western Hemisphere and the other showcasing queer artists from Canada”. The cancellation, ordered by the Trump administration, had the goal of eradicating federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion. Not surprisingly The National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian have closed their offices supporting work by racial minorities. Andre Masson, “Legend,” 1945, tempera on canvas, 26 1/8 x20”. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. I grew up in the New York City suburbs. The city afforded me the continual availability of museums, concerts and Broadway shows. I never doubted that art of all types, including exhibitions and performances that reflect our ever-changing, diverse world, would always be accessible. Yet today I worry that many of the art forms that I love might soon be besmirched or seized by the current administration. Liz Goldner  is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.  Liz Goldner’s Website .

Tenzing Rigdol, “Biography of a Thought,” 2022-24, acrylic on woven carpet, 20’ x 40’. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In suddenly darkening  times like these, when it appears that our country is slipping into fascism, as our president fires tens of thousands of civil servants for disagreeing with him, halts foreign aid  that includes funds to treat  victims of starvation and Ebola, demands loyalty oaths to him rather than the Constitution, pardons violent henchmen, kisses up to Putin, throws Ukraine under the bus, mandates the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, defunds everything from DEI programs to the national parks, then declares himself King, all while taking direction from the richest man in the world, art can seem trivial by comparison, a highbrow distraction from the collapse of America.   But art is not trivial. Forms of government come and go, for better or worse, but the impulse to make art endures. Art is born of ideas, freedom, a love of truth and beauty. Artistic free expression is a basic human impulse, not to mention a right protected under the Constitution, which when exercised elevates the spirit and challenges the intellect. Art is the freest thing there is. Even when it’s suppressed, it survives, though funding for it may not. That will harm a lot of artists, but you can’t stop us from making art, not really, not all of us. You cannot banish us from the earth. You can’t even fire us. Most of us already work for very little; freedom wins out over profit. We are the little creatures that will hide in the woodwork and survive after the marauders pass through. The only thing art insists on is an open mind. Damien Hirst, “‘Mantra’ Kaleidoscope Butterfly Wings with Diamond Dust,” 2011, silkscreen, diamond dust, 65 x 64 x 2”. Courtesy of artnet.com . A recent visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, where the text of a 130-year-old speech has been transformed into a light installation, reminded me of all this. It was pretty comforting.   In 1893, soon after the museum opened, the first World’s Parliament of Religions convened in Chicago. Its main event site was the city’s new art museum, which was romantically named The Permanent Memorial Art Palace. The gathering assembled religious leaders from around the world for a global interfaith dialogue. There, in the museum’s assembly hall, two sets of high ideals, religious and aesthetic, married and produced a fragile offspring named optimism . A young Hindu monk from India, Swami Vivekananda, delivered the conference’s opening address. He called for an end to all religious bigotry. Jitish Kallat, “Public Notice 3” (detail), 2010, LED bulbs, wires, rubber. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. The text of that short speech now forms the content of “Public Notice 3,” a site-specific light installation by Indian artist Jitish Kallat. The work, now on view for a second time in Chicago, debuted at the AIC on September 11, 2010, commemorating not only the 9/11 terrorist attacks but the occasion of the original speech, which also took place on a different September 11. Kallat renders Vivekananda’s 456 words in glowing LED text on the risers of the museum’s grand staircase, in the colors of the post-9/11 terror alert system — green, yellow, orange, red — a subtle nod to the persistent climate of fear.   Swami Vivekananda’s speech was brilliantly simple, as many great ideas are. Some might call it naïve, but radical ideas are often dismissed as such. I prefer to think of it as radically hopeful. Vivekanandea makes his startling assertion about one third into the speech: all religions are true. He doesn’t explain or try to reconcile the apparent contradiction. He goes on to quote from a Hindu hymn he learned in childhood: “As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.” What this means in practice is a mystery, but his greater point is stunningly clear: All spiritual beliefs lead ultimately to truth. I would add that art, as a form of spiritual pursuit, does too. Tavares Strachan “Kojo,” 2021. Courtesy © Tavares Strachan and Perrotin. Now is the right time to revisit these ideas. More than ever we live in a time of divisiveness and hate. It’s even worse than 2001. We hate not only “foreign” “enemies,” we loathe our neighbors. We discount each other’s beliefs, be they religious or secular ideologies, and because we believe we are what we believe, we despise each other. And when we feel hated we hate back harder with a retaliatory intolerance that is at least as vicious. Political ideology has replaced religion for many, but the fierce loyalty it inspires, the complacency it permits, and the wrath it condones are no different than religious fanaticism. To quote Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth century French scientist and philosopher, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”   Vivekananda warned: “Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendent, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth, drenched it often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.” He ends with the audacious hope that the gathering he addresses will usher in “the death of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.” Jake and Dinos Chapman, “Fucking Hell” (detail), 2008, mixed media installation. Courtesy of the Pinault Collection, Paris. Well, that didn’t happen. How we on planet Earth, and by we I mean all of us because it doesn’t work unless it’s all of us, get to such a state of high mindedness I have no idea. The world seems much meaner than it did even six months ago. But even to consider the possibility is to take a step closer. Art helps. Maybe some truth-telling humor would too. Check out this classic video by Monte Python’s John Cleese from 1987 . Margaret Hawkins  is a writer, critic and educator. Her books include “Lydia’s Party” (2015), “How We Got Barb Back” (2011) a memoir about family mental illness, and others. She wrote a column about art for the Chicago Sun-Times, was Chicago correspondent for ARTnews, and has written for a number of other publications including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Art & Antiques and Fabrik. She teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Loyola University. Visit  Margaret Hawkins’ website .