Four major European museums are simultaneously staging ambitious exhibitions of Black American artists, including Kerry James Marshall at London's Royal Academy, Jacob Lawrence at Kunsthal KAdé in Amersfoort, Nina Chanel Abney in Paris and Amersfoort, and Mickalene Thomas at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse and the Grand Palais in Paris. The article, written as an opinion piece, describes the author's experience at the opening of Abney's show at Elbow Church in the Netherlands and contrasts the European embrace of these artists with the political climate in the United States.
This matters because it highlights a stark contradiction: while European institutions are making massive commitments to showcasing Black American artistic narratives, the U.S. is experiencing what the author describes as a collapse of institutional capacity, constitutional protections, and federal arts funding under the Trump administration. The article cites Amy Sherald's withdrawn exhibition from the Smithsonian and reports that one-third of U.S. museums have lost federal funding, framing the European shows as a long-overdue reckoning that underscores the erasure and censorship happening in America.