Trump Defunds MASS MoCA

On Friday night, the National Endowment for the Arts sent MASS MoCA an email notification of the termination of our awarded grant for the support of Jeffrey Gibson’s commission POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT.

The NEA grant for this exhibition was awarded last year under the prior federal administration in accordance with the rigorous standards of the funding criteria of the NEA. Specifically, it was awarded on November 9, 2024 with an expectation that receipt of funds would happen this Spring. The NEA’s notification by email reads, in part:

 "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. 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." 

The President’s priorities and agenda are mentioned vaguely, and the notification emphasizes their right to terminate a federal award “by the greatest extent authorized by law.”

In reading our notification multiple times, I am struck by the words being used, how important they are to absorb, and is why I am sharing them here with you as supporters of MASS MoCA. 

MASS MoCA is not the only arts organization, nor NEA grant recipient, to have received this termination notice of awarded funds. These are being sent en masse — not only from the NEA, but from multiple federal agencies that award and redistribute taxpayer dollars for education, science, health, research, humanities, libraries, historic preservation, parks, etc. — all of which stem from the current President’s many Executive Orders. 

MASS MoCA has also received a grant termination notification from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for staff training on technology. They too emphasize that our previously awarded funding “is no longer consistent with agency priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States.”

Please take a moment and read that last sentence again…no longer serves the interest of the United States… 

The loss of these crucial funding awards for projects at MASS MoCA (pending appeals) is real and will throw us into greater financial strain. 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.

MASS MoCA is a not-for-profit contemporary art museum that supports the visionary work of artists in all disciplines and cultures. We warmly welcome everyone as audience members and visitors and will continue to do so. 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. 

POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT is proudly on view and will be luminously alive for our visitors through August 2026, as will all other exhibitions and programming planned and forthcoming.

MASS MoCA is here to do what our mission and charter serves for the commonwealth, artists, our employees, and our public good.