The DOGE (Department of Government Effectiveness), the commission led by Elon Musk which aims to reduce public spending, strikes again. The administration of Donald Trump has just dissolved five regional offices and put on leave of dozens of employees of two GSA entities (General Services Administration, an independent agency of the American government created in 1949 to manage federal goods): GSA fine arts collection (whose website is inaccessible today) and the GSA Historic Preseation, responsible for commanding and preserving the collection of federal art.
This situation leaves the fate of many works – about 26,000 dating from 1850 to the present day – in uncertainty. These works are exhibited in federal buildings across the country and a large part of the collection is also lent in the long term to museums and non -profit organizations.
A letter from Stephen Ehikian, the newly appointed acting administrator of the GSA, explains that the layoffs are due to the fact that these entities “No longer corresponded to the objectives of the White House”referring to the DOGE initiative of Elon Musk.
The employees of the GSA fine arts expressed their fear that these cuts would threaten the collection which includes important works such as sculptures Flamingo (Flamingo1974) by Alexander Calder located in front of the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago and Man Controlling Trade (Man controlling the scholarship1942) by Michael Lantz located outside the Federal Trade Commission building in Washington.
The fate of works being catering is also uncertain. The table The Tropical Country (The tropical country1941) by Gifford Beal, for example, which is normally in the building of the Ministry of the Interior, is temporarily stored with a restaurateur. But faced with these sudden cuts “No planning, no accounting”he told Washington Post ; the restaurateur does not know if he will be paid for his work. Artists whose current projects have been ordered by the agency are also in ignorance.
The director of the GSA Center for Fine Arts asked employees to quickly download their documents in a common file, under penalty of losing the history of conservation of the works, according to a copy of her email obtained by the Washington Post.
