The Department of State of the United States has removed a work by Kehinde Wiley that it commissioned for the US embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and that the current ambassador recently described as a symbol of “globalist and woke ideologies”. News of the work’s removal was first reported by Zachary Small of The New York Times. A senior official for the State Department says it is now exploring the legality of deaccessioning the painting, Young Artists After Siamesas 1960 (2015), which was commissioned through the Art in Embassies programme and paid for with taxpayer funds.
“The Department of State is in the process of discussions with legal representatives to ascertain whether the art can be sold,” the senior official said in a statement shared with The Art Newspaper. “If that is feasible, it would be the goal of Art in Embassies to proudly do so.”
While the official did not articulate any specific objections to Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, they did cite sexual misconduct allegations against Wiley (which the artist has denied) and his comments about a series of works based on historical depictions of Judith beheading Holofernes. Regarding his own reinterpretations of the subject, in which Black women hold the severed heads of white figures, Wiley had said in a 2012 interview with New York magazine that it was “a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing”.
“The work of an individual with such violent and racist words and depictions has no place in the America First State Department,” the senior official added. “We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and artists should not be exempt from scrutiny.”
Leah Campos, whom US president Donald Trump appointed to serve as ambassador to the Dominican Republic, said in a statement: “It is my intention that everything we project from US Embassy Santo Domingo, including the art and décor, reflect the beauty, strength and commitment to liberty of the United States of America and its people.”
In an Instagram post from 11 August documenting the work’s removal, she wrote: “In the Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies and instead embracing American patriotism and the beauty of our great country!” (In the video, Wiley’s painting is initially concealed beneath a large tarp featuring a US flag design.)
Representatives for Wiley’s galleries in New York (Sean Kelly) and Paris (Templon) did not immediately respond to The Art Newspaper’s inquiries.
To create Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, Wiley visited with art students in Santo Domingo and studied the work of the Dominican painters Gilberto Hernández Ortega (1923-79) and Celeste Agustina Woss y Gil (1891-1985). The work is typical of Wiley’s oeuvre, with four classically posed contemporary figures set against an ornate floral pattern. Even for an artist known to make monumental works, the painting is enormous, spanning more than 12ft wide and nearly 9ft tall. It was installed in the Santo Domingo embassy in the summer of 2015.
Wiley was awarded a Medal of Art in 2015 for his contributions to Art in Embassies and US cultural diplomacy.
Two years later, Wiley transcended art world renown and achieved global fame when he was selected to paint former US president Barack Obama’s official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. That painting and Amy Sherald’s companion portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama were unveiled to great fanfare in 2018 and subsequently went on a multi-year tour of museums across the US.
The State Department’s art programme has been part of the federal government since 1963. During Trump’s second term, it has increasingly been targeted and remade by his appointees and supporters. The current director of Art in Embassies, Erin Scavino (a former contestant on Trump’s television programme The Apprentice), attacked Wiley’s painting during a recent appearance on the YouTube show hosted by Sean Spicer, who served as White House press secretary during Trump’s first term.
Campos “had a piece of art in her embassy that we worked very hard to get taken down”, Scavino told Spicer. “It was very woke. It was by the gentleman who did Obama’s portrait, and it was aesthetically terrifying.”
Last year, Scavino appointed a friend with no curatorial experience, Jenni Parido, to commission the exhibition for the US pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Earlier this year, Scavino claimed she had gotten the US ambassador to Romania fired because of a work she described as “satanic baby art” that hung in the embassy in Bucharest, though the ambassador had reportedly already planned to retire. Last month, Art in Embassies opened Passport to Patriotism: 250 Years of Diplomacy, an exhibition of patriotic art at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC.
