The Trump administration, in partnership with Amtrak, unveiled a plan earlier this week to renovate the world-renowned Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan. 
Penn Station, located in Trump’s hometown of New York City, is the busiest transportation center in the Western Hemisphere. It takes in roughly 600,000 commuters every workday, which is more than the amount of daily traffic at John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty airports combined, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/new-york-penn-station-trump-reconstruction-7b2eb6ca8f1f32ad591b52066edc59a8">Associated Press.</a> 
But in recent years, Penn Station has become a home for the homeless and violent criminals. The congested transit hub has been in the news recently for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/homeless-mans-penn-station-stabbing-rampage-wasnt-his-first-attack">stabbings</a>, confirming New Yorkers&#8217; sentiments that the station is no longer safe. 

“It’s a sh*thole,” one law enforcement source <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/08/24/penn-station-shooting-just-latest-in-crime-spike-at-the-terminal/">lamented</a> to The New York Post in 2021. “It’s drugs. They come from all over … Some are just homeless. Now that [Madison Square Garden] is open you’re going to see scalpers, hustlers, and the residual [violence].”
Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-NY) spoke for many New Yorkers when he <a href="https://abc7ny.com/post/penn-station-lirr-tom-suozzi-crime/11403363/">declared</a> in 2021 that Penn Station has become &#8220;a dangerous dungeon,&#8221; adding, &#8220;I&#8217;ve been coming here for decades. It&#8217;s never been this bad.&#8221; 
President Donald Trump wants to change that.
“The Golden Age of Transportation is coming thanks to President Trump,” <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/historic-again-president-trumps-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-amtrak-and-penn">said</a> U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “He had a vision to transform this dirty, falling-apart station in the middle of his hometown into a state-of-the-art transit hub that millions can enjoy for generations to come. American families deserve a safe, efficient, and clean commute to their homes, jobs, and churches.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
LOOK at what is coming to New York City 🚨👀<a href="https://x.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> is transforming Penn Station into the world-class masterpiece it was always meant to be
This isn&#8217;t just a renovation, it&#8217;s a complete, mind-blowing REBIRTH 🇺🇸 <a href="https://t.co/gNyAW2U5AM">pic.twitter.com/gNyAW2U5AM</a>
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) <a href="https://x.com/SecDuffy/status/2064425528975634662?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The winning design for the remodeled Penn Station was submitted by Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), whose founder Vishaan Chakrabarti has <a href="https://pau.studio/who/">worked</a> on American landmarks such as Columbia University, the East River waterfront, and the street grid surrounding the World Trade Center. 
 
PAU <a href="http://pau.studio/work/pennsylvania-station-renewed/">lamented</a> in a statement that the original Pennsylvania Station was a “Beaux-Arts masterpiece designed by McKim, Mead &amp; White” that was destroyed “in an act of extraordinary civic vandalism,” leading to the creation of a modern “subterranean station that has long been unsafe, undignified and unable to meet the demands of a growing city and region.” PAU seeks to fix the ailing station with their new design.
“For PAU, the project represents an ‘architecture of memory’—one that draws from historical precedent without replicating it,” the PAU statement said. “The proposal seeks to unite sustainability, durability, public utility, and civic grandeur in a station designed to serve future generations, while addressing the errors of the past.”
Justin Davidson, New York Magazine’s architecture critic, has stated that the architecture will also make Penn Station more navigable and accessible. 
“What the plan does accomplish is it clears away columns from the congested platforms and adds escalators, so commuters don’t have to stand in line to exit or rush to board in the few minutes between the platform announcement and departure,” Davidson <a href="https://www.curbed.com/article/trump-penn-station-redesign-pau-hok-art-deco.html">observed</a>. 
“An orderly grid of wide, high-ceilinged concourses, all on one level, replaces the multilevel ant farm of today, making the station safer and less stressful for its 650,000 daily passengers. The 18-wheelers serving Madison Square Garden, which now trundle in, back out, and cause gridlock on the street, will move through the building’s innards and stay out of sight.”
The designs will also include a presidential seal featuring Trump’s name. 
The project is projected to cost between $7 to $8 billion, mostly financed through federal grants to Amtrak, together with some private financing, federal loans, and potentially some funds from New York City. They plan to break ground at the end of 2027. In the meantime, the Department of Transportation is open to hearing public feedback on the proposed designs.
The Trump administration unveiled its Penn Station design after other renovation successes, including restoring the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-trump-trolls-libs-with-ai-pic-of-him-lounging-in-lincoln-memorial-reflection-pool">Lincoln Reflecting Pool</a> and cleaning up <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-administration-to-fix-d-c-s-troubled-union-station">Union Station</a> in Washington, D.C.

The historic hall of Penn Station in New York city with the American flag

The Transit Hub That Shapes America’s First Impression Is Getting A Reboot

Amtrak

Department of Transportation

designer

Donald Trump

New York City

Railways

Transportation

Trump

Lego has unveiled a massive new model of Barcelona&#8217;s iconic Sagrada Familia basilica, a release timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of its chief architect, Antoni Gaudí. 
The set contains 12,060 pieces, making it the largest Lego set ever released, according to the company.
“The new set captures the evolving story of Barcelona’s most iconic landmark, with the building steps mirroring the basilica’s actual construction sequence,” Lego <a href="https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2026/june/lego-architecture-sagrada-fam-lia-set-unveiled">said</a> in the statement. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Lego Architecture Sagrada Familia revealed!
12060 pieces / $799.99 / £649.99 / 1st a November 2026<a href="https://x.com/hashtag/Lego?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Lego</a> <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/Legonews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Legonews</a> <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/Legoleaks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Legoleaks</a> <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/architecture?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#architecture</a> <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/SagradaFam%C3%ADlia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SagradaFamília</a> <a href="https://t.co/t3HrbmSP0s">pic.twitter.com/t3HrbmSP0s</a>
— Brick Built Blogs (@BlogsBrick) <a href="https://x.com/BlogsBrick/status/2062520774313840830?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
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“The build begins with the foundational Apse and Crypt, moves through Gaudí’s original Nativity façade and the dramatic Passion façade, before rising into the grand naves, Western Sacristy and six iconic towers. The final stage brings the model together with the Eastern Sacristy and the Glory façade.”
The release comes as the real Sagrada Familia approaches a major milestone of its own.
Construction on the basilica began more than 140 years ago and has continued ever since. According to <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/06/04/gaudis-sagrada-familia-finally-shakes-off-its-incompletable-tag-as-pope-prepares-to-inaugurate-tallest-and-final-tower">The Art Newspape</a>r, Pope Leo XIV is expected to bless the newly completed Tower of Jesus on June 10, the centennial of Gaudí&#8217;s death.
&#8220;The inauguration marks the symbolic completion of the church, though work is expected to continue for another decade,” according to the outlet.
The Sagrada Familia is the latest religious landmark to receive the Lego treatment. In 2024, the company released a model of Notre-Dame Cathedral, one of the world&#8217;s most renowned Catholic landmarks, during the reconstruction of the famous Paris church. The move signaled a willingness to create sets based on prominent religious sites.
The new set was designed by Rok Žgalin Kobe, who has also worked on Lego versions of the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Trevi Fountain, and other architectural icons. 

The Sagrada Familia Lego set is available for preorder for $799.99 and is scheduled for release on November 1.
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Barcelona, Sagrada Familia

A Catholic Work Of Architecture Is Set To Become Largest Lego Set Ever

Catholic

Catholic Church

Catholicism

Catholics

Lego

Notre Dame

Notre Dame Cathedral

Spain

Toys

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
There are many famous memorials within walking distance of each other in our nation&#8217;s capital, but perhaps none so imposing as the World War I Memorial just steps from the White House. Its 60-foot bronze sculpture known as &#8220;A Soldier&#8217;s Journey,&#8221; installed in 2024, honors the 116,000 men and women who died in the war and uses 38 figures in its depiction of the hero&#8217;s journey, beginning and ending with the relationship between a soldier and his daughter. For Memorial Day, The Daily Wire spoke with Sabin Howard, the master sculptor behind the art. We talked about the beauty of the Western artistic canon, the value in memorial artwork, and why our history is something to remember, not reject.
The Daily Wire: Tell us about getting veterans to pose for you as models. What was that process like?
Sabin Howard: There&#8217;s something that distinguishes this memorial from the rest of the memorials that are out there, and I really wanted to show our humanity. My whole process of making art is so reliant on looking at real people. I spent an average of 650 hours per figure. That whole time you&#8217;re looking at the person, and you&#8217;re diagramming what you see in real life and translating it into art. And I&#8217;m using a system of translation that is objective truths and sacred truths.
When you look at art and when you depict a human being, that human being needs to be — I&#8217;m searching for the word — created. It&#8217;s almost like as an artist you&#8217;re creating the vision of that human being in the sculptural form. And we&#8217;re made in God&#8217;s image, so you have to use a voice that comes from the canons of Western civilization, of proportion and anatomy and design, that were used for almost 2,000 years — and then thrown out.
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<div id="attachment_1101293" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101293" class="size-medium wp-image-1101293" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_7317-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_7317-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_7317-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_7317-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_7317-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Courtesy of Sabin Howard</div>
There&#8217;s no way I could have made that monument if I didn&#8217;t have a really, really good knowledge of what had preceded me in the figurative art world for the last 2,000 years. Every single figure comes from a source of an artist that has preceded me, and then I use that as a launching point to then evolve it into something that would be modern and contemporary. 
What can I learn from looking at the Baroque period with Bernini? It&#8217;s highly dramatic and like an opera. And what about the structure of Michelangelo? And what about the emotionalism of Rodin? Because I looked at that, I was able then to compose things that are very unique because I would have a starting point. I didn&#8217;t go and try to reinvent the wheel. I looked at what had happened in Western civilization, and I took that and I evolved it into a contemporary mindset. And that was by making the figures more kinetic, more action-packed, breaking past the boundary of the frame. And that goes to the art form of today, which is movies. So that sculpture is an evolution of Western civilization. I made a bronze &#8220;movie&#8221; that the visitor comes and looks at.
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<div id="attachment_1101217" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101217" class="size-medium wp-image-1101217" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_9613-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_9613-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_9613-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_9613-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/IMG_9613-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Courtesy of Sabin Howard</div>
The Daily Wire: You&#8217;ve created something visually complex and compelling. Why was it important to create a sculpture in this style rather than, say, some abstract shapes? 
Howard: A large segment of our society is not into art, right? They&#8217;re not art aficionados. So you need to make something that will capture their attention in a chemical, visceral way. And so by going to the idea of a bronze movie, you&#8217;re doing something that&#8217;s very dynamic, kinetic, and emotional. It has a life when people look at it. I saw busload after busload of eighth graders and high school kids, and they&#8217;re really captured by it because they&#8217;re excited by it, by how it looks. The visuals are exciting to them.
We got a problem, though, because figurative art today is not exciting. If you do something that&#8217;s esoteric and static and quiet, it&#8217;s not going to emotionalize the viewer. You got to capture the viewer&#8217;s attention. And so I was thinking, how do I design this so I can capture the viewer&#8217;s attention and get them engaged? That was it.
People want to see what we look like. They want to know, what did it look like to be in World War I? That&#8217;s what I did.
The Daily Wire: Like you were saying, there&#8217;s a little bit of a contemporary element. Viewers can picture themselves in that scenario. It doesn&#8217;t feel as far removed.
Howard: Yes. That&#8217;s exactly it. It&#8217;s perfect words that you use, &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t feel that far removed.&#8221; You can relate to it, and you can see yourself in the sculpture because it&#8217;s not like gods. It&#8217;s very much real people because we sculpted real people.
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<div id="attachment_1101295" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1101295" class="size-medium wp-image-1101295" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-1312837205-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-1312837205-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-1312837205-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-1312837205-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/GettyImages-1312837205.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo by Shannon Finney/Getty Images</div>
The Daily Wire: Why is it important to have things like the World War I Memorial, this sculpture, pieces of art that are specifically about our veterans or people who have died in combat? What is the value of honoring them in that way, through art?
Howard: Two things. Each of us is not an isolated incidence in time. Our DNA strings way back into history. And then if you have children, it goes forward. So we are stewards of our history, and we, in the present moment, must think about how are we going to play that into the future.
I&#8217;m very averse to tearing down the past and saying, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s old, it&#8217;s archaeological, it&#8217;s history.&#8221; No, it&#8217;s our story. Stories unify cultures and countries. And that&#8217;s why the Left is so interested in destroying history and destroying values and Western civilization: because then it&#8217;s like we&#8217;re starting fresh from zero and you have to reinvent everything rather than build off of our heritage of what we&#8217;ve been given.
History explains to us our virtues and our ideals because we&#8217;ve seen men and women who have done things of great courage and stepped into places where we don&#8217;t know what will happen. Stepping into the void, I call it. Those soldiers and all history, everything that we honor — these are men and women that have stepped in the void. It&#8217;s limbic space, and it&#8217;s a space where our faith grows.
This is actually what all memorials are about. It shows the virtue and ideals of our predecessors. How can we learn from history so we don&#8217;t repeat the same mistakes? And we move forward with greater consciousness.

First Illumination of “A Soldier’s Journey” At The National World War I Memorial

The Hidden Message Inside America’s New WWI Memorial

History

Upstream

World War I

“¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa” represents the Smithsonian’s Latino Museum’s third attempt to present itself to the American public. The first two exhibits failed — one so badly that it was withdrawn before opening — largely because of their overtly political, left-leaning framing. Museum leadership apparently hopes that the third effort will finally succeed.
To its credit, ¡Puro Ritmo! initially seems designed to avoid the controversy that doomed its predecessors. After all, who could reasonably object to an exhibit focused on salsa music? As the museum’s director, Jorge Zamanillo, explained to Time Magazine in 2023, a music-centered exhibit was chosen precisely because it would have “broader appeal.”
Yet the exhibition ultimately falls into the same ideological patterns as before. Opened to the public on April 18 at the Molina Family Gallery of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the exhibit’s content reveals a clear bias. The curators, deeply committed to a culturally Marxist framework, conspicuously exclude any meaningful discussion of one of salsa’s most important influences: Spanish music and culture.
Throughout the exhibit, the displays and explanatory panels emphasize the African roots of Cuban dance music that later evolved into salsa. Considerable attention is given to African sacred music, defined as “the religious songs, dances, and instruments of Yoruba, Kongo, and Calabar (Efik) peoples, among others, that influenced the development of Afro-Cuban dance music.”
These contributions are undeniably significant and worthy of recognition. However, this narrative tells only half the story. The influence of Spanish music and culture is also essential to the development of salsa, yet, aside from three cursory references to “African, Spanish and Indigenous heritage,” it is purposely ignored.
Museum patrons won’t learn that Spanish troubadour traditions contributed the foundational harmonies and melodies that shaped Cuban “son,” the genre that, when fused with African rhythms, became salsa in New York. Spanish musicians also introduced guitars, lutes, and other string instruments to the Caribbean, which became central to Cuban musical traditions.
The Cuban intellectual Alejo Carpentier — by no means a conservative — was one of many who highlighted how the arrival of Spanish musicians in the 16th century initiated the Cuban sound.
In his foundational <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/497535366/CARPENTIER-Alejo-La-Musica-en-Cuba">La Musica en Cuba</a>, Carpentier writes, “Cuban music is the result of the convergence of two fundamental factors: the Spanish and the African; but while the former contributes the melodic and formal elements, the latter introduces a rhythmic richness that profoundly transforms those elements.”
Additionally, while the exhibit is rich with references to Santería (the Yoruba-based religion, akin to Haitian Vodou, practiced in Cuba) as permeating salsa music, it fails to acknowledge Catholicism. This omission is striking and difficult to justify.
The reason becomes clearer when the exhibit is viewed through a broader ideological lens. Much like the museum’s earlier efforts, ¡Puro Ritmo! seems intent on redefining the Latino experience exclusively in terms of “people of color,” and erasing the legacy of the West, a framing that distorts Latin identity. Latin American culture is not rooted in a single ancestry; it is the product of centuries of cultural and racial blending.
Indeed, the one single thing that would link Hispanic identity would be Spain — its religions, language, etc. There is no salsa without Spanish musical and cultural contributions.
This pattern of exclusion of all things Western is consistent with the background of the exhibit’s chief curator, Ranald Woodaman, a longtime advocate of leftist identity politics who frequently advances narratives centered on white supremacy and oppression frameworks.
Woodaman previously led the Smithsonian’s first Latino Museum exhibit, “¡Presente!: A Latino History of the United States,” which opened at the Molina Gallery in 2022 and promoted racial identity politics, gender ideology, and Marxist interpretations rather than balanced historical analysis.
I panned ¡Presente! soon after it opened in <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3596470-the-smithsonians-latino-exhibit-is-a-disgrace/">an article</a> for The Hill. I have repeatedly cautioned lawmakers that the museum’s early exhibits reflected an overtly Marxist portrayal of history, religion, and economics, shaped by an oppressor–oppressed narrative that dominates much of contemporary academia.
Zamanillo later scrapped a second exhibit that two socialist curators had been working on, which was known as the “Latino Youth Movements” exhibit. Among other things, it was going to showcase how bad capitalism was for Hispanics.
I argued then, and maintain now, that such ideology has no place in taxpayer-funded institutions charged with preserving and transmitting American culture. So forceful was that critique in 2022 that Congress, for a time, cut funding for the Latino Museum.
The Trump administration shares our concerns and proposed cutting the museum’s funding and halting its full development. Unfortunately, several Republican Hispanic lawmakers intervened to restore full funding, arguing that the institution could be corrected of ideological bias.
¡Puro Ritmo! demonstrates that this hope was misplaced. The museum has again proven unable — or unwilling — to separate culture from political ideology. Perhaps now it will become clear that the only way to truly fix the Latino Museum is to dismantle it entirely.
***
Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Smithonian National Museum of American History

The Smithsonian’s New Latino Exhibit Is Missing A Huge Piece Of The Story

Culture

DW Opinion

Another devastating blow to the European art world was unveiled after thieves broke into a private Italian museum, making off with three masterpieces in a heist last week that lasted only three minutes, officials said on Monday.
The robbery took place the night of March 22 at the Magnani Rocca Foundation in the Italian countryside near the city of Parma. The three stolen artworks by renowned French artists are worth roughly $10 million: “Les Poissons” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “Still Life with Cherries” by Paul Cézanne, and “Odalisque on the Terrace” by Henri Matisse. A fourth piece was abandoned at the scene, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/world/europe/parma-art-heist-renoir-matisse-cezanne-italy.html#:~:text=Paintings%20Worth%20Millions%20of%20Dollars,to%20the%20Italian%20news%20media.">according</a> to the New York Times.
Four hooded thieves reportedly entered the museum through the front door, where they snagged the art from the French Gallery on the first floor. After they were interrupted by the museum&#8217;s security system, the group then escaped across the gardens and climbed over a fence to freedom.
From start to finish, the entire theft took just three minutes.
“Still Life with Cherries” by Paul Cézanne
<div style="width: 725px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="css-r3fift" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma4/30xp-parma4-articleLarge-v2.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale" sizes=" ((min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 1004px)) 84vw, (min-width: 1005px) 60vw, 100vw" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma4/30xp-parma4-articleLarge-v2.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma4/30xp-parma4-jumbo-v2.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma4/30xp-parma4-superJumbo-v2.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 2048w" alt="A painting of a plate of cherries and a mug on a table. " width="715" height="522" />Magnani Rocca Foundation, via Reuters</div>
“Odalisque on the Terrace” by Henri Matisse
<div style="width: 729px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="css-1m50asq" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma3/30xp-parma-01-jbmt-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale" sizes=" ((min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 1004px)) 84vw, (min-width: 1005px) 60vw, 100vw" srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma3/30xp-parma-01-jbmt-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma3/30xp-parma-01-jbmt-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/30/multimedia/30xp-parma3/30xp-parma-01-jbmt-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 2048w" alt="A print of a person lying on a stool and a woman naked from the waist up sitting and holding a violin. " width="719" height="489" />Magnani Rocca Foundation/Reuters</div>
The museum <a href="https://time.com/article/2026/03/30/italy-museum-art-heist-renoir-cezanne-matisse/">believes</a> a &#8220;structured and organized&#8221; gang was responsible, though the heist was “not completed” because of the quick response from local authorities. There have been no arrests in the days since, and the museum has continued operating as usual.
A police spokesman told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/30/style/magnani-rocca-art-heist-italy-scli-intl">CNN</a> the officials kept the heist a secret in hopes of catching the thieves if they returned.
It has been less than six months since the infamous Louvre heist transpired in Paris, France, where thieves stole $102 million worth of jewels and other items in the middle of the day. A lawyer for the foundation told CNN that the latest theft may have been inspired by the apparent &#8220;ease&#8221; of the previous crime.

“Boccioni 1900-1910 Rome Venice Milan” Exhibition

Three Minutes. Three Masterpieces. How Thieves Pulled Off A $10M Art Grab.

Italy

Museum

Robbery

Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the Trump-Kennedy Center, responded to composer Philip Glass&#8217;s cancellation of his latest symphony at the storied arts institution. 
“We have no place for politics in the arts, and those calling for boycotts based on politics are making the wrong decision,” Daravi told The Daily Wire. “We have not canceled a single show. Leftist activists are pushing artists to cancel but the public wants artists to perform and create—not cancel under pressure from political insiders that benefit from creating division.”
Daravi, the center&#8217;s vice president of public relations, said that they have not canceled any shows and that the center&#8217;s aim is unity and celebration of the arts. 
The statement comes after composer Philip Glass made headlines for calling off the premiere of his new symphony, “Lincoln,” which the National Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to perform in June. 
&#8220;Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony,&#8221; Glass said in a statement posted to X on Tuesday. &#8220;Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.&#8221;
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<a href="https://t.co/v8rHPl2rJT">pic.twitter.com/v8rHPl2rJT</a>
— Philip Glass (@philipglass) <a href="https://twitter.com/philipglass/status/2016179940815761860?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The Kennedy Center board voted unanimously in December to rename the Washington, D.C., performing arts venue The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which caused an uproar among leftists.
Before and after the name change, several artists have canceled their appearances at the center. A run of the musical &#8220;Hamilton&#8221; was canceled, and actress Issa Rae also called off her show. Jazz musician Chuck Redd was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-kennedy-center-hits-musician-with-1m-lawsuit-for-anti-trump-political-stunt">criticized</a> for canceling his Christmas Eve performance days before it was supposed to take place. The center said they would seek $1 million in damages for the abrupt cancellation, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-kennedy-center-hits-musician-with-1m-lawsuit-for-anti-trump-political-stunt">reported</a>.
In early 2025, President Trump ousted the Board of Trustees, named himself Chairman of the Board, and appointed Richard Grenell as interim executive director. Trump wrote at the time, “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”

Trump Kennedy Center

Trump-Kennedy Center Reacts To Latest Cancellation: ‘No Place For Politics In The Arts’

Trump-Kennedy Center Reacts To Latest Cancellation: 'No Place For Politics In The Arts'

Kennedy Center

Music

The Kennedy Center

Washington D.C.

A graffiti exhibition at Canterbury Cathedral, one of the oldest Christian structures in England dating back to 597, has many people baffled and enraged.
The newly unveiled installation by the poet Alex Vellis and curator Jacqueline Creswell includes graffiti-style messages applied directly to the stone walls of the massive cathedral. Questions such as, “What is the architecture of heaven?” and “Does everything have a soul?” can be seen in the customary graffiti style script on the walls and columns of the building.
“Why are you indifferent to suffering?” another message found beneath a stained glass window says, per <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/canterbury-cathedral-graffiti-art-hear-us-controversy-1234756433/">ARTnews</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Church of England decided this week to cover the interior of the oldest cathedral in England in graffiti in order to represent the voices of “marginalised communities.”
The Very Rev David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury, said: “There is a rawness which is magnified by the… <a href="https://t.co/bQ6BYsNU2A">pic.twitter.com/bQ6BYsNU2A</a>
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1976571987381395614?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Creswell explained the exhibition’s goals on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DPjR6L9gmfG/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">Instagram</a>, writing, “By collaborating with marginalized communities—including the Punjabi, black and brown diaspora, neurodivergent individuals, and the LGBTQIA+ population—the exhibition promotes inclusivity and representation. It transforms the cathedral into a space where diverse voices can be heard, validating their experiences and fostering a sense of belonging.”
The exhibition has the support of the dean of Canterbury, David Monteith, who <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/canterbury-cathedral-artwork-graffiti-drawings-b2843041.html">said</a> of the display, “There is a rawness which is magnified by the graffiti style, which is disruptive. There is also an authenticity in what is said because it is unfiltered and not tidied up or sanitized. Above all, this graffiti makes me wonder why I am not always able to be as candid, not least in my prayers.”
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Meanwhile, social media users are voicing their dismay at temporarily desecrating a house of worship.
Irish author Keith Woods <a href="https://x.com/KeithWoodsYT/status/1976595414565466254">posted</a> on X, “Was horrified to see this graffiti on Canterbury Cathedral, founded by St. Augustine [himself], then I discovered it was actually an initiative welcomed by the Church of England!”
“It’s actually stunning how much the elite of Britain hate their own culture and civilization,” Australian conservative activist Drew Pavlou wrote. “You couldn’t even invent this as satire. They are literally scrawling graffiti on the walls of ancient cathedrals. Everything beautiful is just torn down and destroyed.”
The graffiti display is scheduled to remain until January 2026.

Canterbury Cathedral

‘Horrified’: Graffiti Exhibition At Historic Canterbury Cathedral Sparks Outrage

Graffiti

London

Religion

United Kingdom

Wokeness

World

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Left can’t meme, but can only scold the Right for memeing well.
This dynamic was once confined to esoteric feuds among terminally online partisans. Now, it’s playing out in the open — between government agencies and what remains of the legacy media — and the stakes are increasingly tangible.
The Trump administration’s social media accounts have spent their summer appropriating classic images of Americana, notably J.M. Flagg’s famous<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Montgomery_Flagg#/media/File:I_Want_You_for_U.S._Army_by_James_Montgomery_Flagg.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 1917 Uncle Sam poster</a>. But things really hit a fever pitch when the Department of Homeland Security shared three seemingly innocuous images: <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Gast’s 1872 “American Progress,”</a> with the caption “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1940164863793549747" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thomas Kinkade’s “Morning Pledge”</a> with the caption “Protect the Homeland,” and<a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1944875154745778525" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Morgan Weistling’s “A Prayer for a New Life”</a> captioned “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.”
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Protect the Homeland.
“Morning Pledge” by Thomas Kinkade <a href="https://t.co/JLs26R3VlO">pic.twitter.com/JLs26R3VlO</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1940164863793549747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
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According to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/29/trump-dhs-immigrants-social-paintings/">Washington Post</a>, “the art world is not happy” with these posts because they are “part of an effort to rewrite the past with an exclusionary view of American history,” one in which there are clear standards of good and evil.
The Post doesn’t attempt to show why ordinary Americans should care about this. But while the Post’s freakout may be amusing to behold, it also gets at something important. Liberals are right to panic about these posts — and conservatives should pay attention.
The second Trump administration is staffed with right-wing Zoomers. These staffers are digital natives: born in the memeworld, molded by it, and in many cases more radically opposed to the leftwing hegemony that reached its apogee during their formative years than those of us who remember the days when cable news still dictated the terms of national conversation.
Those days are gone. Millennials like JD Vance and Stephen Miller hold high office. The aesthetic sensibilities of the Zoomers on their staff are shaping the administration’s narrative warfare, providing unprecedented air cover to the administration’s ground operations. Their social media habits are a visible sign of just how far the Left has fallen from its media and, thus, meaning-making monopoly.
The recent dustup about Homeland Security posting Americana paintings is just a minor skirmish in the larger war that is being waged for the sensibilities of the American people. Liberals have long realized that he who controls the production, distribution, and regulation of images controls the hearts, minds, and imaginations of the population.
Despite their confusion over other fundamental truths such as the difference between a man and a woman, liberals grasp this reality — and in it, something essential to the human condition.
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A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.
American Progress &#8211; John Gast <a href="https://t.co/agU6bl8TZ8">pic.twitter.com/agU6bl8TZ8</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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We are imaginative as well as rational creatures, embodied as well as capable of abstract thought. Our reasoning about right and wrong, true and false, never gets very far without referring to something particular we’ve experienced, either directly in our own lives or vicariously through the testimony of others — including stories and history. “Music,” in the classical and comprehensive sense of “the arts of the Muses,” matters.
In ancient Greece, the nine Muses were the daughters of “Memory” and presided over the arts. Mythology and biography, parable and narrative, have always been the primary means of moral and political education, and they remain so today. Americans in general still recognize the power of the “Muse-ical arts,” mainly in the potency of historical narratives such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement.
We would do well to recover the sense of power contained in other forms of “Music,” especially the storytelling power of films. Newer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/movies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ventures</a> on the <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/07/20/2025/founders-films-aims-to-remake-hollywood-with-patriotism-palantir-and-ayn-rand" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Right</a> are beginning to do this.
But we still have a long way to go. Even the artists whose work the Trump administration is now using aren’t safe from the Left’s appropriation.
The Kinkade Family Foundation, scandalized by the Trump administration’s use of his work, <a href="https://www.kinkadefamilyfoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> it was “deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS” and pledged solidarity with “our communities who have been threatened and targeted by DHS, especially our immigrant, BIPOC, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and disabled relatives and neighbors.” Weistling, the only artist of the three still alive, took to his <a href="https://www.morganweistling.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> to distance himself from the politics of the moment: “The recent DHS post on social media using a painting of mine that I painted a few years ago was used without my permission.”
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Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.
New Life in a New Land &#8211; Morgan Weistling <a href="https://t.co/nFL61Nljbw">pic.twitter.com/nFL61Nljbw</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1944875154745778525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Still, there is a virtually inexhaustible store of classic works of mythology, literature, and history, ancient as well as American, waiting to be adapted by artists who love rather than revile our inheritance.
There is a lesson here for older conservatives. Liberal donors have long appreciated the political utility of culture. As a class, they have lavished funds on all manner of artistic ventures, sowing seeds broadly in the expectation that just a few of their investments will blossom into captivating cultural products. As a result, they have dominated the culture for generations — not because young people are naturally more liberal (Zoomer men are currently disproving this myth) — but because their cold, hard cash has helped drag the next generation leftward.
Conservative donors are more comfortable running a business than patronizing the arts. They tend to focus their charitable giving on well-defined causes with short-term returns on investment. They have thereby won discrete battles — winning this election, pushing that policy through Congress — while losing the broader war for the soul of the nation.
That the unembarrassed Americanism of artists like Kinkade and Weistling has enjoyed commercial success while swimming against the tide of liberal cultural hegemony is a sign of just how high a demand remains in the American public for non-leftist cultural products. Liberal hegemony is cracking up, and as the Trump administration gets serious about winding down its taxpayer-funded power bases, from NPR and PBS to elite universities, the crack-up is bound to continue.
The emergence of an energetic and effective American Right has far more to do with digital disruption than with a strategic change in the conservative donor class. Conservatives who are serious about reclaiming American culture, and consigning the most anti-American elements of the Left to the dustbin of history, should put a shoulder to the wheel — not just in lobbying and campaign donations, but in directly patronizing the artists, educators, and other culture creators who celebrate rather than denigrate our civilizational heritage.
Pavlos Papadopoulos is Associate Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

American Progress

Americana Posting And The War For Culture

Conservatives

Department of Homeland Security

Gen Z

Painting

Washington Post

A security camera captured the moment when a tourist broke a Swarovski crystal-studded museum display dubbed the “Van Gogh” chair after sitting in it.
The incident occurred in April, but has been circulating on social media after just being released by the Palazzo Maffei museum, which is located in the Italian city of Verona.
The video shows a woman at first pretending to sit in the chair art piece, which was made by Italian artist Nicola Bolla. Next, her male companion gets into the same pose, only in his case puts his weight on the chair, causing both of the front legs to buckle. The man stumbles before the camera captures the pair rushing out of the room.
“They waited for the staff to leave the room,” museum director Vanessa Carlon said in a video posted on its social media. “And then … off they went, indifferent to what had happened.”
“Sometimes we lose our brains to take a picture, and we don’t think about the consequences,” Carlon added. “Of course it was an accident, but these two people left without speaking to us—that isn’t an accident. This is a nightmare for any museum.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lUpa_gM9_Ww?si=Lh14F6HPsGQoqf74" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
“On the chair was a note warning people not to touch, and of course it is placed on a pedestal, so it’s quite clear it’s not a real chair,” Carlotta Menegazzo, an art historian who works at Palazzo Maffei, told <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn05dd4pz0jo">BBC</a>. She added that the sculpture only resembled a chair, but was actually crafted out of crystal-studded tinfoil.
The piece, which was inspired by Van Gogh&#8217;s famous 1888 painting &#8220;Van Gogh&#8217;s Chair,&#8221; has since been repaired by the museum’s restoration department and is on display to the public again. Reps said the video has been released as a reminder to visitors about how to treat the artwork at their facility.
&#8220;Art must be respected!&#8221; the museum said in a press release, per USA Today. They added that the video was released &#8220;to make this serious event an opportunity for reflection for everyone.&#8221;
The couple has not been identified.

Van Gogh chair

WATCH: Man Sits On, Breaks Swarovski-Encrusted ‘Van Gogh Chair’ At Italian Museum

General

Tourism

Andrew Klavan’s new book arrived in my inbox with providential timing. Only a few hours before I started perusing The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, I’d signed a publishing contract for my first novel — a story of murder, prostitution, and the many debased things that fallen man is willing to do in pursuit of his ambitions.
But a tiny part of me blushed at the plot I was preparing to put down on paper — what would compel a Christian, a self-professed church lady no less, to tell such a sordid tale?  What compels other Christians to read them? Klavan, as might be expected from an award-winning crime writer and very public Christ-follower, has long been thinking about such questions and now provides an answer.
“We should look at the question from the other direction,” Klavan says, “what good does it do anybody to write about the world as it&#8217;s not?” And the world, as he details through the true stories of three notorious killers — including history’s first killer — can be a very dark place. Portraying that darkness accurately in our art, Klavan contends, is one way we can better recognize and appreciate the light.
As one endorser of The Kingdom of Cain said, the book is part meditation and part memoir. I’d add, it’s also part apologia, as Klavan makes an argument for the ultimate triumph of not just a generic goodness but a Christian goodness. Evil, he argues, in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, is the unwelcome guest to the original state of creation, which, as we know from Genesis, was very good.
“The shall-nots of the Ten Commandments are not restrictions on our true selves,” writes Klavan, “They are a guide to clearing the path to our original nature so we can become who we truly are.” Another way to say it is that the world began with a moral order, and what goes against that order is the intruder. Klavan explains why this reality should inform the work of any Christian artist seeking to write words that ring true. “I will write about absolutely horrific things,” he says, “but always in the moral world.”
What does writing dark works in the moral world look like? He shows us.
While analyzing the great fictional works his three case studies inspired, Klavan’s insights give new relish to film classics, offering fresh revelations about their appeal to audiences. One of his chapters on 1950s cross-dressing serial killer Ed Gein dissects how he is reimagined in the film Psycho. Unlike the novel it was based on, the movie recognizes not just the psychological brokenness of its villain, but his spiritual deformity. What the Catholic Hitchcock “understood in his bones,” Klavan writes, “is that there is a tension between the things of the spirit and the things of the flesh.”
And so, the great director played up that tension, bringing about his female lead’s murder right as she is in a moment of redemption, preparing to make amends for stealing $40,000 from her employer. This elevates the story from simple scare fest to tragedy.
“[Lead female character Marion’s] work in the film is the work of the spirit,” Klavan writes. Through her death, Hitchcock picked up on an aspect of Gein’s history that Psycho’s initial author didn’t — &#8220;the struggle to reconcile religion with eroticism is real.” This is something Hitchcock subtly points to by having Norman Bates use a biblical painting of Susanna and the Elders, which depicts two spiritual leaders trying to sexually exploit a woman as she is bathing, as a peephole to spy on Marion undressing for the shower.
From the Book of Daniel to the Bates Motel — the baser impulses of men will ever be a threat to women.
Other works inspired by the Gein case, like The Silence of the Lambs, compel because they not only tell us truthfully of the violence associated with perverted sexual desire, they also mock the idea that the explanations for such violence will be provided by psychiatry rather than religion. Hannibal Lecter is simply the face of unapologetic evil — like the icy Nietzscheans Leopold and Loeb (whose story Klavan also details), there is no Freudian concept that will restrain his malevolence. He would have to become an entirely new creature for that, a magic that only Christianity can work.
The book is full of similar, worthy insights, particularly when it comes to works inspired by the story of Cain. It is clear that for Klavan, there is no joy like the joy of accurately representing the human experience, and humanity is sinful. You cannot tell compelling stories while hiding reality, something the Bible’s authors apparently knew very well, given the horrors that fill Scripture’s pages from incest, to gang rapes, to, well, crucifixion.
Too often, Christians forget the “true” part of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to think about: &#8220;whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.” Truth is sometimes ugly, but all truth is God’s truth, Klavan tells me, and will reflect God’s moral order. “Every honest story, every true story, has God,” he says
“Whether you believe or not, if you tell a true story, if you tell the truth about life, God will be there.”

Untitled design (31)

Andrew Klavan’s Dark World

Andrew Klavan

Bible

Christianity

A new statue of an overweight black woman placed in Times Square in New York City is inspiring a lot of reactions online, especially since it&#8217;s being compared to Michelangelo’s “David.” 
Times Square Arts recently erected the statue by artist Thomas J Price, which is called &#8220;Grounded in the Stars,&#8221; as a temporary display in the tourist-heavy area of Manhattan. There will also be a “Man Series” of billboards displayed in the area.
The Times Square website <a href="https://www.timessquarenyc.org/tsq-arts-projects/grounded-in-the-stars">says</a> of the piece: &#8220;Price’s multi-channel presentation on the screens and sculptural installation on the plaza below forms a two-part takeover in Times Square that foregrounds the intrinsic value of the individual and amplifies traditionally marginalized bodies on a monumental scale.&#8221;
The website notes that the statue depicts “a fictionalized character” who was “constructed from images, observations, and open calls spanning between Los Angeles and London.” 
“The young woman depicted in Grounded in the Stars carries familiar qualities, from her stance and countenance to her everyday clothing,” it says, noting that her “stance is a subtle nod to Michelangelo’s David.”
The site also says, “the woman in Grounded in the Stars cuts a stark contrast to the pedestaled permanent monuments — both white, both men — which bookend Duffy Square, while embodying a quiet gravity and grandeur.”
Social media users have had overwhelmingly negative reactions to the statue.
“They tear down statues of American heroes and replace them with statues of random obese black women. That’s because the Left has no historical heroes. Everyone who was born before approximately 2005 is inherently problematic,” Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh <a href="https://x.com/mattwalshblog/status/1920116456454328758?s=43&amp;t=BDz6oekueqrSVJ50bM62xw">wrote</a>.
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They tear down statues of American heroes and replace them with statues of random obese black women. That’s because the Left has no historical heroes. Everyone who was born before approximately 2005 is inherently problematic.
<a href="https://t.co/ypjxG1p2ZU">pic.twitter.com/ypjxG1p2ZU</a>
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1920116456454328758?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“In 2021, NYC removed a statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall due to ‘racism.’ The city has now erected a huge statue of a rotund woman in Times Square,” conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey <a href="https://x.com/conservmillen/status/1920201578516263221">wrote</a>. 
“So, we’re taking down monuments to people who accomplished some of [the] greatest feats in human history, from which we are all still benefitting (sic), and instead honoring random people who have zero notable contributions. Doomed,” she added.
“Statues aren’t just art. they’re markers of who we are and what we stand for. But the Left doesn’t want heroes, they want a blank slate to push their woke agenda,” another commenter <a href="https://x.com/OneXOneY/status/1920118030673072397">added</a>.

Grounded in the Stars

New NYC Statue Of Overweight Black Woman Touted As ‘Contrast’ To Monuments Of White Men

New NYC Statue Of Overweight Black Woman Touted As 'Contrast' To Statues Of White Men

Manhattan

New York

Race

Statues

Times Square

U.S.

The 2025 Met Gala will go forward tonight with many A-list celebrities in attendance dressed in their wildest outfits to celebrate this year’s official theme: “Black Dandyism.”
Inspired by Monica Miller’s book “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity,” the new exhibit will center on black style, especially menswear, from the 18th century to present.
The annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will continue its longstanding tradition of being an over-the-top extravagant and slightly controversial event for celebrities to show off their fashion. Even celebrity fans often roll their eyes at what seems like a blatant display of wealth.
For example, tickets cost $75,000 each.
But this year, major news outlets like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/style/met-gala-2025-black-dandy-politics.html">The New York Times</a> are painting the Met Gala as a means of “resistance” against the Trump administration, especially since the president ventured into the world of the arts by taking over the Kennedy Center earlier this year.
NYT noted that this year’s show has special “relevance” as it’s “devoted for the first time entirely to designers of color” and “focuses on the way black men have used fashion as a tool of self-actualization, revolution and subversion throughout American history and the black diaspora.”
“This feels way bigger than just fashion,” Louis Pisano, a cultural critic and the writer of the newsletter Discoursted, told the outlet, mentioning how the theme was an intentional choice. “Putting black style front and center sends a real message.”
Co-chairs include Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, ASAP Rocky, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, and Pharrell Williams. LeBron James is an honorary chair.
“It’s important that we don’t sit this one out,” Pisano said. “Not when black fashion is finally being centered in an institution that has historically excluded it.”
“I’m already bracing for the conservative backlash once they pay attention to it, and that’s why it’s especially important that people show up,” he added.
The outlet noted that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will not be attending the Met Gala this year, and neither will Elon Musk, who last attended in 2022. Most attendees are kept a secret until the event happens.
Wintour said in a statement that “the show was never about politics, not in conception, not now,” but is about  “self-determination, beauty, creativity and holding up a lens to history.”
She did acknowledge, “the Met recognizing and taking seriously the contributions of black designers and the black community in fashion has a heightened meaning in 2025.”

Colman Domingo

Met Gala’s ‘Black Dandyism’ Theme Touted As Act Of ‘Resistance’ Against Trump

Celebrities

Fashion

Menu

Art