New York. Snow, closed curtains and a large anti-ICE movement… Friday January 30, the art world mobilized massively in the United States by joining a national movement of shutdown aimed at denouncing the ultra-violent operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the American federal agency in charge of immigration. Triggered in particular by the situation in Minneapolis (Minnesota), where the massive deployment of federal agents led to the deaths in January of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, American citizens, and by the acceleration of aggressive migratory raids in the country, the mobilization took the form of a coordinated closure of galleries, independent spaces and cultural institutions across the country.
Strikingly in a country where resistance to the new Trump administration’s stranglehold on culture and freedom of expression has remained largely invisible, the movement brought together an exceptionally broad spectrum of the art world, well beyond activist structures, and surprised with its scale and diversity. Responding to the economic strike call “No school, no work, no shopping”, leading international galleries, from Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery to Almine Rech and Perrotin, joined historic players in the New York market, such as Paula Cooper Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery, Andrea Rosen, David Kordansky, 303 Gallery or Petzel, as well as numerous intermediate galleries, young structures and associative spaces in New York and Los Angeles, but also in Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami and Austin. Several non-profit institutions and spaces have also suspended their activity, including The Drawing Center, El Museo del Barrio, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Cue Art Foundation in New York.
“Seeing what is happening in Minneapolis makes it difficult to continue normal activity, especially in a cultural field that so often calls for care and responsibility”explains to JdA Margot Samel, owner of the eponymous gallery in New York, among the first to launch the movement in the art world. “ Human rights are non-negotiable and, when they are violated, neutrality itself no longer seems possible. »
Closing your gallery or space as a political gesture remains rare in art. If major causes, from the death of George Floyd in 2020 to the anti-ICE mobilizations under the first Trump mandate, to the protests against the Vietnam War, have already provoked reactions from the sector, these most often took the form of declarations or symbolic gestures, rarely of a coordinated social and economic movement on a national scale.
New York galleries on the front line
In Chelsea, on streets crossed by a Siberian wind, the blinds of the galleries are lowered, the metal curtains closed. On the doors, notices display support for the national movement. “In solidarity with Minnesota and our nation’s communities, Paula Cooper Gallery will join the national strike and will be closed Friday, January 30”indicates one of them on a black background (see ill.).
Sign explaining the reason for the closure of the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York during the day of protests against ICE, organized on January 30, 2026 in the United States.
© Plum Perromat
In this white-gray desert, a head sometimes emerges in a doorway to smoke a cigarette and share its anger. “I avoid getting into politics, but when it’s too much, when we arrest people in schools, in churches, it’s not possible, we can’t let it go. We are decent or we are not”protests Philippe Labaune, a Frenchman living in the United States for thirty-six years and founder of the gallery of the same name, specializing in comics. Since opening its space five years ago, “ This is the first time we’ve closed the gallery” for a cause.
Further south, in the Lower East Side, the streets are busier but the many galleries are also closed. Margot Samel, Alexander Gray Associates, Anat Ebgi, Sargent’s Daughters, Shrine, Silke Lindner… No movement there again except that of passers-by and taxis whose reflections slide across the windows. A day suspended for many, and a day of active protest for others, not far from there.
In Foley Square, some 7,000 demonstrators gathered at the foot of the sculpture Triumph of the human spiriterected there, like a challenge, a few steps from a federal building housing ICE services. The crowd is dense, mixing students and people of all ages. A young woman holds up a sign with the capital letters “TRIBECA GALLERIES AGAINST ICE” towards a royal blue sky with her gloved hands. Her name is Elise Griffin, from Bienvenu, Steinberg & C gallery. “Closing is one thing. But actually doing something is another thing. We must go further. Because art touches us like nothing else can. And if we have artists, if we are the ones who carry and distribute their work, then we must do something with this force. We must move this movement forward. Because art has a voice of rare power. »
