National Endowment for the Humanities funds intended for Trump sculpture park

The largest union to represent museum and library workers in the United States is suing the Trump administration after the issuing of an executive order to ‘eliminate’ the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has filed the lawsuit jointly with the American Library Association (ALA). The executive order of 14 March obliged the IMLS to place its entire staff on administrative leave with immediate effect. Last week, attorneys general from 21 states filed a similar lawsuit against the Trump administration in a Rhode Island federal court. Earlier this week, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has begun terminating the employment of most of its employees, cancelled more than 85 per cent of its existing grants. It is redirecting some of its funds – granted to it by Congress – towards the National Garden of American Heroes, a sculpture park first proposed by President Trump in 2020. Towards the end of his last administration the president issued an executive order mandating that the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts allocate some $34m to this project in total – an order rescinded by President Biden after he took office.

The global value of art market sales fell by 12 per cent in 2024 – but the number of transactions rose, according to the annual report by Art Basel and UBS. The value of sales fell to $57.5bn, with the higher end of the market accounting for most of the drop. However, the number of transactions increased by three per cent, to 40.5 million. Dealer and public auction sales fell, but private sales are reported to have risen by 14 per cent. The United States remains the largest art market in the world, with 43 per cent of global sales by value, though its sales declined by nine per cent year on year. The United Kingdom is back in second place with an 18 per cent share of the global market, having been displaced last year by China (which includes Hong Kong for the purposes of the report). Sale value in China fell by 31 per cent in 2024, to $8.4bn.

Pierre Terjanian will be the next director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is replacing Matthew Teitelbaum, who is retiring after having served as director since 2015. Terjanian joined the MFA Boston in 2024 as chief of curatorial affairs and conservation, which involves overseeing the museum’s collection of 500,000 objects. His previous role was as the curator of arms and armour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Terjanian told the New York Times that despite the ‘volatile’ environment for museums under the Trump administration, the MFA Boston is ‘not planning any significant changes’. He will take up his new position in July.

A climate activist who defaced the glass covering around a sculpture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit an offence against the United States. In 2023, Timothy Martin and Johanna Smith, two members of the climate-change protest group Declare Emergency, smeared washable paint on the protective glass covering Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–81). ‘She’s protected so I could apply paint to the case without damaging the sculpture,’ Martin told USA Today, ‘but all the children of the world are not protected because of climate change.’ Martin, a 55-year-old father of two, was found guilty by a federal jury and will be sentenced in August. He faces a custodial sentence and a significant fine.