As a response to President Trump’s ban on immigration to the U.S. from seven mostly-Muslim countries, the Museum of Modern Art has rehung part of its permanent collection by artists from some of these very countries. The New York Times called the action “one of the strongest protests yet by a major cultural institution against President Trump’s executive order.”
Works by Picasso, Matisse and Picabia have been temporarily replaced by works from the Sudanese painter Ibrahim el-Salahi, the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, and the Los Angeles-based Iranian video artist Tala Madani.
Alongside each piece is a note from the museum which states: “This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on Jan. 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum as they are to the United States.”
