Artswatch: KenCen Upheaval, Air & Space Museum Marks 50 Years
By • February 25, 2026 0 227
Kennedy Center to Close for 2-Year Overhaul
In the wake of a subscriber, donor and artist boycott, President Donald Trump — who reconstituted the Kennedy Center board, which named him chairman and voted to insert his name (in defiance of propriety if not legality) before JFK’s — declared that the center would close on July 4 for a two-year overhaul. The last straw: Kevin Couch, named senior vice president of artistic programming in mid-January, resigned two weeks later. How this will impact the National Symphony Orchestra, which under Music Director Gianandrea Noseda declined to follow in Washington National Opera’s footsteps (see below), is unclear.
New Venues for Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera, which last month announced its disaffiliation with the Kennedy Center, its home since the center opened in 1971, will present “Treemonisha” and “The Crucible” at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium in March. WNO’s new adaptation of “Treemonisha” is directed by famed mezzo-soprano and Duke Ellington School of the Arts alumna Denyce Graves, who sang her last Met Opera performance on Jan. 24. The dates and venues for WNO’s gala, co-hosted by Stephen Schwartz and Jamie Bernstein, and season-closing production of “West Side Story” have not been released.
Woolly Mammoth Names Next Artistic Director
Reggie D. White will become Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s third artistic director early this spring, succeeding Maria Manuela Goyanes, who left last September to join Lincoln Center Theater in New York. A California State University, East Bay, graduate, White is senior director of artistic strategy and impact at Arena Stage, where his play “Fremont Ave.” premiered last fall. From 2022 to 2024, he was associate artistic director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Co-conceived by founding Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz and Roger Brady in 1978, Woolly moved to its current home on D Street NW in 2005.
Post Writes Off Critics, Along With 300 Others
Among the 300-plus Washington Post journalists laid off on Feb. 4 — in conjunction with local and international coverage cutbacks and the purge of the sports and books sections — were Chief Theater Critic Naveen Kumar, after two years; Classical Music Critic Michael Andor Brodeur, after six years; and Art Critic Sebastian Smee, after eight years. Their replacement appears unlikely, at least in the near term. The dance critic position, last filled by Sarah Kaufman, a Pulitzer Prize winner like Smee and Senior Art and Architecture Critic Philip Kennicott (still employed), was dropped after the Post wrote Kaufman off in 2022.
Plans to Sell Building Put New Deal Art at Risk
The Trump administration’s plans to dispose of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, completed in 1940, have alarmed historians of American art and others who care about the nation’s cultural legacy. Underutilized and inaccessible, a half-dozen blocks from the Capitol at 330 Independence Ave. SW, the building holds a trove of social-realist frescoes, murals and relief sculpture by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston and less well-known artists of the New Deal era. Responsibility for these works of public art, and thousands more nationwide, falls to the much-reduced Fine Arts staff of the General Services Administration.
Air and Space Museum to Mark Half a Century
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which opened on July 1, 1976, during the U.S. Bicentennial, will celebrate its 50th birthday during America 250, inaugurating five new galleries on July 1. Two more will open on Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, completing a multiyear renovation. On the last Monday of every month, the museum will present a 50th anniversary IMAX film series. Plans to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to Houston have been placed on hold by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman due to the relocation’s cost and logistics and the risk of damage to the craft.
Arts, Humanities Endowments Retain Funding
Both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities were funded by Congress last month at $207 million each, despite the administration’s call for the agencies’ demise. Mary Anne Carter, a former Heritage Foundation staffer and policy advisor to then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, received Senate confirmation as the NEA’s 14th chairman on Dec. 18, succeeding Maria Rosario Jackson (Carter also led the NEA during President Trump’s first term). General Counsel Michael McDonald remains acting chairman of the NEH; the prior chairman was Shelly C. Lowe, like Jackson an appointee of Joe Biden.
