CULTURED reports that in 2025, nearly 50 percent of solo exhibitions at New York museums featuring modern and contemporary art focused on deceased artists, more than double the 18 percent share in 2019. Major institutions like MoMA, the Broad, ICA Miami, and the Whitney have programmed posthumous shows for figures such as Wifredo Lam, Helen Frankenthaler, Ruth Asawa, Robert Therrien, Joyce Pensato, Richard Hunt, and Roy Lichtenstein. The article traces this trend to a confluence of factors: ongoing scholarly revisionism, a cultural swing toward equity during the Biden administration, and the long lead times for museum exhibitions that have landed in a more polarized political climate under Trump II.
This matters because it raises fundamental questions about the purpose of contemporary art museums. The shift toward posthumous exhibitions comes at a time when contemporary art is perceived as aimless, and it reflects a tension between the museum's role as a living forum for new work and its function as a mausoleum for canonized figures. The article argues that the modern and contemporary art institution model, which once championed living radicals, now struggles to balance its remit to appraise daring new art with the need to contextualize history. The trend also highlights how institutional diversity initiatives, planned in a more progressive era, are now landing in a backlash, potentially undermining their original intent.