The Metropolitan Museum of Art director Max Hollein told French art publication Le Quotidien de l’Art in a recent interview that the Trump Administration’s recent push to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs will have no effect on the venerable institution.
In town for the Centre Pompidou’s “TransFORMS” exhibition, dedicated to his father, the architect Hans Hollein, the Met director sat down with French art publication Le Quotidien de l’Art for a wide-ranging interview covering everything from deaccessioning and repatriation to the newly renovated Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, set to open next month.
But the buzziest part of the interview, to be sure, was Hollein’s response to the question of whether President Donald Trump’s executive order in January to end federal DEI programs would affect the Met. Federally-funded institutions like the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and others have since stopped such programs.
“The Met is a private organization, not a federal institution that must meet the same standards as some government agencies. Therefore, these types of political decisions do not apply to us, and we are not making any changes to our exhibitions or programs. We are a non-partisan institution that develops its own ‘programmatic identity,’” Hollein said.
Le Quotidien de l’Art editorial director Fabrice Bousteau pushed Hollein on that point, suggesting that even if the Met sustains itself in large part thanks to private donations, politicians could pressure their patrons to reduce their donations if they disagreed with the Met’s direction.
Hollein, for his part, argued that protecting against such pressure is a matter of cultivating a diverse and varied donor profile.
“We rely on a broad range of donors,” Hollein said. “Each of them has distinct priorities and advocates for personal visions of philanthropy. The job of the Met’s director and the team is to unite this group. This allows us to avoid being dependent on a single source of funding. We simply need to ensure that the vision of the patrons aligns with that of the institution, and to bring together people with a diversity of perspectives, so that change doesn’t happen in just one area. This model is possible in New York, where philanthropy is very strong.”
