By many accounts, Donald Trump is an art lover... as long as the art has his face on it, and ideally bolsters his reputation as a world-historical figure. Back in the 80s, he even commissioned Andy Warhol to create a tribute to Trump Tower (which he ultimately rejected, refusing to pay – Warhol later branded him a cheapskate). The question is: why is such an avid cultural connoisseur working so hard to undermine the arts in America today? Shouldn’t he be working hard to bolster the creative industries, in the hope that grateful artists will pay tribute to his patronage for years to come?

This is, of course, wishful thinking. Even as the US marks its 250th birthday, many of the nation’s museums and art institutions are struggling for survival, amid brutal funding cuts and pressure to bow to “anti-woke” censorship. According to a survey published by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) late last year, more than a third (34 per cent) of museums saw government grants or contracts cancelled in 2025. Others have been affected by government-led layoffs and anti-DEI legislation... which is a polite way of saying ‘rewriting history’, when you consider it’s been used to minimise Black history at the Smithsonian and disrupt the conservation of other historical artefacts, like African American quilts at the Berkely Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

The result? While a few institutions report the same or even better attendance than pre-pandemic levels (in 2019), more than half are worse off. This is a significant decline from attendance levels recorded in 2024. “It revealed some sobering news, which was that recovery from the pandemic wasn’t just coming to a stall but actually reversing,” the AAM’s Natanya Khashan told the Guardian this week. “We’re seeing declines in attendance, weaker financial performance and growing instability across the museum field.”

It isn’t very surprising to see the Trump administration wielding censorship and budget cuts as a weapon in the ongoing ‘culture wars’ – the liberal slant of arts and culture programming hardly falls in line with the current administration’s right-wing and increasingly authoritarian ambitions. Even the submissions for this year’s US pavilion at the Venice Biennale were forbidden from promoting diversity or “political” messaging.

But how big a red flag is the decline of American art, really? Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro has a pretty clear answer to that question. “At a time when people tell you art is not important, that is always the prelude to fascism,” he declared while accepting an award at the recent Palm Springs International Film Festival. “When they tell you it doesn’t matter, when they tell you a fucking app can do art you say, if it’s that important, why the fuck do they want it so bad? The answer is because they think they can debase everything that makes us a little better, a little more human.”

With the US government conducting “illegal” military operations in Venezuela, threatening to “conquer” Greenland, and openly supporting the murder of a peaceful protester in its own borders – as well as a paramilitary force (ICE) that even Joe Rogan has likened to the Gestapo – del Toro’s warning doesn’t seem too farfetched. The filmmaker’s complaint about art made by a “fucking app” is also significant, given the Trump administration’s embrace of AI-generated slop, memes, and retrograde kitsch to further its agenda – and displace, or “debase”, human art – on social media.

All of this leaves the state of American art in a pretty poor place, going into 2026. But could there be a silver lining? Throughout history, great art has emerged from times of political struggle and resistance, from World War I, to post-Soviet Russia, to 70s NYC (AKA the birthplace of hip-hop). Outside of big institutions, artists can continue to make a difference and maybe even channel their anger into something entirely new, especially if they follow del Toro’s advice: “Be kind, be involved, believe in your art.”