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- Small and mid-size cultural organizations are banding together to weather federal funding cuts.
- A look at Hew Locke’s largest museum show yet, at the Yale Center for British Art.
- A dissident artwork briefly occupied the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
THE HEADLINES
ICE UNDER HEAT. By the time you read this, it will be too late—probably—to see the artwork placed yesterday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The 3,000-pound ice sculpture spelled “Democracy,” and its creators anticipated that it would melt under the dawn’s early rays. Vanishing, they told The Washington Post , much like the civil liberties that protect Americans from government overreach. The icy message was courtesy of Ben Cohen, well-known activist and the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, and his Up In Arms campaign, which demands that Pentagon expenditures be reduced and spending redirected towards health care and education. The sculpture, initially standing 5 feet high and 17 feet wide, was made in New York by conceptual artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, and ferried down to D.C. via a refrigerated truck. Cohen told the Post the project was “a powerful symbol that helps express the feelings and the sadness and the horror of Americans.” The activist continued to outline actions taken by the Trump administration that, he believed, are eroding the democratic process: “Attacks on freedom of speech. Masked, unidentified secret police snatching people off the streets and arresting and deporting them…People being prosecuted and punished and sentenced without due process. Using the military against the population of the United States is undemocratic, right?”
ART(ISTS) AT RISK. The Trump administration has brought its fight to America’s streets, and also its cultural institutions. As The New York Times reports , about one-third of United States museums have lost government funding in 2025 alone. Some of the now-imperiled organization reportedly ran afoul of executive orders that have vilified diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) programs and so-called “gender ideology” as attempts to “rewrite history.” The budget cuts, coupled with such policies, have had a dire domino effect on the US arts ecosystem: Of the roughly 35,000 museums in the country, 10,000 of them held grants and contracts that were canceled this year. The Times report goes deep into how the cultural community has stayed resilient amid the onslaught. A handful of foundations have tried to fill the funding void, including the Mellon, Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler and MacArthur foundations. Local communities are banding together, too. In Los Angeles, LAVA (Los Angeles Visual Arts Coalition), representing leaders of some 30 small and mid-size organizations, have launched group funds and even shared access to endowment networks. “Everyone is vulnerable when they can be cherry-picked — when they are facing the government alone,” Lee Rowland, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said. “When you’re dealing with bullies, the only way to survive that moment is not to capitulate and find strength in numbers.”
The Digest
Hew Locke’s newly opened show at the Yale Center for British Art is his biggest museum show yet, surveying three decades of the Guyanese British artist’s work. Artnet Newsoffers a deep dive into the history and symbolism behind the poignant presentation, titled “Hew Locke: Passages”. [Artnet News]
A man has been accused of a memorial artwork near Martin Luther King’s crypt in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the Atlanta Police Department, the suspect urinated into a reflection pool and stomped on the Eternal Flame. The organization managing the memorial states on its website that the flame represents King’s vision for “a world of justice, peace, and equality of mankind.” [Hyperallergic]
The Princeton University Art Museum will reopen on October 31 following a construction project that weathered controversy over its former project leader, the architect David Adjaye. The Times got an early look at the storied collection and its newest additions, including commissions by Sean Scully, Diana Al-Hadid, and Ai Weiwei. [The New York Times]
Archaeologists have discovered what they believe is a mass grave of Roman soldiers haphazardly hidden inside an ancient well in Croatia. [Live Science]
An opulent museum in Munich dedicated to Symbolist Franz von Stuck has reopened after a €13.5 million (roughly $16 million) renovation. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
BEHIND THE LENS. Diane Keaton, Oscar-winner and all-around Hollywood icon, died from pneumonia on October 11. In the days following her passing, much attention has been paid to her illustrious career as an actress and producer—but more recently, PetaPixel has reminded its readers of her passion for photography. Keaton released at least four photography-related books, two of which featured her own images. Reservations (1980) saw Keaton roadtrip America to photograph its humble, if a bit uncanny, hotels with her favored Rolleiflex camera. For that project she used a direct flash to make starkly lit, black and white portraits of hotel room interiors. It’s cool, really, this glimpse of a bygone era of decor: the beds are round and likely watery and the wallpaper is a nearly-nauseating kaleidoscope of sharp geometries. The New York Times, meanwhile, spotlighted the sole documentary she wrote and shot, “Heaven,” which explores personal and popular ideas of the afterlife. Keaton discussed her own belief in 2021, in an interview for the Golden Globe Awards. “Why would there be such a place as hell, for any of us?” she said, adding, “I just don’t believe that.”
