A proposal last week from the State Department to sell what officials described as an “aesthetically terrifying” painting by the artist Kehinde Wiley that had been on display in a U.S. embassy came without a clear explanation as to what the Trump administration found objectionable.
When officials took down the 2015 work that had been on display in the embassy, in the Dominican Republic, they justified it by pointing to accusations of sexual misconduct against the artist, which he has denied, and comments he made about the racial undertones of another painting.
But a radio interview in April with Leah Campos, the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, has shed light on another possible motive behind the removal. In the interview, which went largely unnoticed until now, she criticized the artwork as showing a lesbian picnic.
Wiley has not responded to requests for comment on the ambassador’s statement. Art experts said Wiley drafted the work, “Young Artists After Siamesas 1960,” based on images by two Dominican artists, using four local art students as reference models in the composition.
“I saw a huge painting of a picnic in a park with flowers and some lesbians,” Campos said in the interview in Spanish with a radio program in the Dominican Republic.
“It was total evidence of the indoctrination the Biden administration wanted to do by bringing that ideology here to the Dominican people,” Campos added. (The work was commissioned under the Obama administration, not Biden’s.)
The artwork’s removal was the latest attempt by the Trump administration to politicize federally funded arts programs.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the ambassador’s comments.
It was also unclear what Campos meant about “bringing that ideology here.”
Although same-sex marriage remains unconstitutional in the Dominican Republic, the country decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1822 — more than 180 years before the United States fully decriminalized them through a Supreme Court ruling.
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Last month, Campos celebrated the painting’s removal with an Instagram video featuring the rock anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” She said it was her intention to “reflect the beauty, strength and commitment to liberty of the United States of America and its people.”
Wiley has responded to the Trump administration’s earlier criticism last week by making available on his online store an “aesthetically terrifying” T-shirt for $120. It incorporates the floral elements similar to those in his embassy painting. The clothing description says it “transforms a pointed critique into something meant to be seen, worn and reconsidered.”
Campos is the sister of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a host on “Fox & Friends Weekend.” Campos worked on the painting’s removal with Erin Scavino, the director of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program who is married to Dan Scavino, one of Trump’s closest aides.
Erin Scavino has taken responsibility for the removal of the painting, also saying that if she finds a legal pathway to sell it, other works in the government collection would follow. She has also led the charge of the State Department’s politicization of art, claiming to have gotten an ambassador in Bucharest, Romania, fired over “satanic baby art” — though the diplomat’s departure was reported as a planned retirement.
In recent days, the Trump administration has taken aim at other artworks — sometimes listing political or aesthetic objections to their designs.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Dan Scavino is a trustee, removed a major outdoor sculpture from the center’s grounds that was targeted for elimination after President Trump’s takeover of the center.
Former State Department officials have said that Erin Scavino might be exceeding the authority of her position. The Art in Embassies program is responsible for building embassy collections, not dismantling them, they said.
“It’s an egregious act,” said Ellen Susman, who directed the program from 2013 to 2016 under President Obama. The Wiley piece was commissioned by the U.S. government in 2013 and paid for with taxpayer dollars. “I’ve never heard of a director taking anything down. It’s an incredible departure from the norm.”
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