NEA Pulls Grant to Mass MoCA Due to Trump's 'Agenda'
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll with museum director Kristy Edmunds in the Gibson exhibit on '413 Day' this year.
In a statement posted on Mass MoCA's website and reprinted on Facebook, the museum said it learned Friday night that a National Endowment for Arts grant in support of Jeffrey Gibson's "Power Full Because We're Different," was being terminated.
The grant, approved in November of last year, supports the exhibition by Gibson, who is "known for creating installations, performances, paintings, and sculpture that elevate and provide visibility to queer and Indigenous communities, whose cultural narratives have been historically marginalized," according to MoCA's website.
The show will remain on view in Mass MoCA's Building 5 through August 2026.
The Berkshire Eagle reported earlier this year that the museum had received $50,000 for Gibson's exhibit through NEA's Grants for Arts Projects.
Without specifying the dollar amount of the grant, Director Kristy Edmunds said its retraction, "will throw us into greater financial strain."
The New England Foundation for the Arts said on Tuesday that active and pending grants from NEA "were abruptly terminated" and encouraged those who received a termination notice to file an appeal by Friday — and to draw down any allowable funds by the May 31 deadline.
Edmunds' statement quotes directly from the emailed notification from the NEA that the grant is being taken away.
"The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President," the email reads, in part. "Consequently, we are now terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration’s agenda."
Edmunds says the president's priorities are "mentioned vaguely" in the email and notes that Mass MoCA is appealing the decision.
Also Tuesday, the Williamstown Theatre Festival said it is appealing a decision by the NEA to terminate a grant it was awarded to promote the development of new work.
The WTF posted on Facebook that the NEA was created with bipartisan support and helps fund an industry that contributes "over $1 trillion to our national economy."
"The wave of cancellations feels like a strategic move to weaken the NEA and clear the path for eliminating it -- a stated goal of the current administration," the theater festival wrote. "But, beyond politics, this is an attack on the idea that the arts are a shared public good, accessible to all, not just the wealthy and not just those who reflect a narrow point of view."
Edmunds' statement also says Mass MoCA is appealing a separate decision by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to terminate a grant, because it, "is no longer consistent with agency priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States."
In the past, the IMLS has awarded grants to libraries and museums around the country for things like workforce training and technology. The institute is listed as a supporter of the museum's public programs.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order to eliminate IMLS, along with six other federal bodies, like the Minority Business Development Agency, "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."
(A court injunction was issued Tuesday to stay further dismantling of IMLS after 21 state attorneys general filed suit.)
Edmunds' statement again did not mention a dollar amount of the Mass MoCA grant but says it was for staff training and technology.
Edmunds said actions like the withdrawal of Mass MoCA's NEA grant are being taken "en masse" against arts organizations.
"The loss of these crucial funding awards for projects at MASS MoCA (pending appeals) is real and will throw us into greater financial strain," Edmunds wrote. "As painful as this is financially, what is more so is the diminishment of our revered national agencies and their staff after decades of service in elevating our national creativity, innovation and cultural contributions. These actions in combination with their rhetoric are unnerving, and are but one of many challenges at hand and to come."
Edmunds said the museum will continue to stay true to its mission despite the setbacks, and museum's website includes an appeal for financial support and links to groups like the National Council of Nonprofits and American Alliance of Museums, who are protesting the administration's actions.
"We warmly welcome everyone as audience members and visitors and will continue to do so," the statement reads. "We generate dynamic spaces for artistic expression to be created and shared with a global public, and we are a place of creative encounter with the extraordinary world in which we live. At our core, we are part of the beating heart of an artistic and creative ecology as it is being lived and made."
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