Art, Memory, and the Ministry of Truth

 

Art, Memory, and the Ministry of Truth

February 16, 2026

The last time I was in Los Angeles—which was some time ago now—I visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and paid my fair share to enter a major exhibition of African art. Not African American art, but art from Africa itself. The scale of the exhibit struck me immediately. It was immense, both in size and in meaning. These were the very forms and sculptural vocabularies that electrified European artists at the turn of the twentieth century, influencing movements that reshaped modern painting, particularly Cubism.

African masks and carved figures were not marginal curiosities. They were catalytic. They entered the studios of Paris and destabilized Renaissance perspective. They opened the door to fragmentation, multiplicity, and abstraction. For me, the Cubist era remains one of the most powerful periods in modern art. Yet even while studying modern art history, I often felt that this African foundation was brushed over too lightly.

When I studied under Fred Martin in Virginia, the lecture series centered heavily on foundational figures such as J. M. W. Turner and the evolution of light and atmosphere into modern abstraction. Turner’s contribution is undeniable, but when we arrived at Cubism, the discussion felt abbreviated, as though the radical break had appeared almost spontaneously. The deep African influence was not given the gravity it deserved.

Earlier, at the La Jolla Arts Center School, adjacent to what was then the La Jolla Museum of Modern Art, I had the opportunity to encounter major exhibitions, including works by Jean Dubuffet. Those encounters left a stronger impression on me than some of the formal lectures. They revealed how European modernism was not born in isolation but in conversation—sometimes appropriative, sometimes transformative—with African forms.

I have often felt there were gaps in how Cubism’s evolution into the Americas was presented. Yes, we speak of artists such as Diego Rivera, and one or two of his early Cubist paintings can still be seen in basic study collections in San Diego County. But what about African American painters of the 1920s and 1930s who worked in Cubist modes? I hear their names occasionally on KPBS. Their works surface in smaller exhibitions. Rarely do they arrive in major Southern California museums. There remains an imbalance in whose modernism gets institutional validation.

One of my instructors, Fred Holly, once exhibited alongside Richard Diebenkorn, bridging Northern and Southern California art circles in the same time frame. That connection reminds me that regional dialogues matter. What is emphasized in one school or museum can quietly disappear in another. Art history is not only about aesthetics. It is about framing, access, and narrative authority.

That question of narrative authority has now entered another arena entirely.

In January 2026, the National Park Service removed several interpretive panels and artworks from the exhibit “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” in Philadelphia. The exhibit focused specifically on the nine enslaved people held by George Washington while he lived in Philadelphia as president. Among those represented was Oney Judge, who famously escaped Washington’s household and sought freedom in New Hampshire.

The removal was carried out under a March 2025 executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed federal agencies to review and remove materials that might “disparage Americans past or living.” Thirty-four panels and artworks were taken down. These included biographical plaques detailing the lives of the enslaved individuals, five video screens featuring actor portrayals, and a panel titled “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” which discussed the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the constitutional compromises that protected slavery.

In response, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe issued a sharp ruling ordering the immediate restoration of the exhibit. Opening her opinion with a quotation from George Orwell’s 1984, she compared the government’s actions to a “Ministry of Truth,” stating that the administration does not have the authority to “dissemble and disassemble historical truths.” She ordered that all 34 removed panels and artworks be returned to their original condition. Her decision rested in part on a 2006 agreement between the City of Philadelphia and the federal government requiring city consent for material changes—consent that had not been granted.

The exhibit is now in the process of being restored as broader legal challenges continue.

When I think back to that vast African art exhibition in Los Angeles, and then consider the removal of historical material in Philadelphia, I see a common thread. The question is not simply what art is displayed or what panels are mounted. The deeper question is who controls the story.

African sculpture reshaped European modernism, yet its centrality is often muted in lecture halls. Enslaved individuals lived in the President’s House, yet their stories can be deemed “disparaging.” The tension between preservation and erasure is not abstract. It unfolds in museums, classrooms, and national parks.

Art history and national history both depend on a willingness to face complexity. Without that willingness, we risk creating our own Ministry of Truth—whether in paint or in policy.