Minnesota artists and arts organizations find ways to combat attacks

The nonprofit arts organization Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center counts on grants, donations and fundraising to keep its doors open.

The nonprofit — specializing in art forms that use heat, such as blacksmithing, jewelry making, neon, metal casting and more — lost its $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant to support artist residencies in May.

“Those are taxpayer funds that are our funds that do good work all across the nation,” Executive Director Victoria Lauing said. “The toxicity that’s coming out of the current administration and the political climate is hugely worrisome to us.”

Some Twin Cities artists and arts organizations feel under attack from Trump administration policies. In response, they’re trying to balance art and activism, building support for arts education and diversity, equity and inclusion and organizing for social change.

The Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center in south Minneapolis had planned to use the funds to support the studio residency artist program and launch a public art residency.

They appealed the grant cancellation and the NEA reinstated it. Now it’s undergoing another final review, and funds could be contingent on new Trump administration guidelines.

“As an organization, our interest is in increasing representation in the fields that we work in, like industrial arts and public arts,” Lauing said. “We talk about diversity, equity and inclusion all the time, because those are values that are important to us ― and we’re not going to change that.”

She hopes that over the next five years, 10,000 students will take advantage of free buses to the Walker‚ free tours and K-12 students making art on-site through its Art Labs program.

Buses cost about $400 and accommodate up to 35 students. The Walker will pay for that.

Previously, only public schools that received federal funding were allowed free buses. Now, any K-12 school can benefit.

“We’re planning to come back to school even stronger than ever,” Hunt said.

Artist Merit Thursday created the variety show “Weird Stuff Only,” which features unusual performances including music, film, puppetry and animation. He is a 2023-25 Jerome Hill Fellow, and his art explores themes of transsexuality, queerness and desire.

The administration also has targeted immigrants, increasing ICE patrols nationwide and arresting people who have spoken out against Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

As Thursday has seen the administration target other groups, his activism has shifted.

“I feel more at home in my transness when I position my struggle as a trans person in coalition with the struggle of incarcerated people, unsheltered people, Palestinians, immigrant neighbors,” he said.

He’s organizing a letter-writing campaign to the Minnesota State Board of Investment asking them to divest pension funds, retirement funds and tax dollars from Israel. Now that he’s in graduate school, “Weird Stuff Only” is on the back burner.

“I am trying to use my skills in creative and clever ways so that I can also be more building a sweeter and better and kinder world,” he said. “If it’s possible, which I do think it is.”

“I think the threat of that and the story that the administration was trying to paint about the exhibit was frustrating because of how inaccurate it was,” Thompson said. “This exhibit is extremely important because it gives voice to artists who have been so often left out of the narrative.”

In late August, the Trump administration released a 26-point memo titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian,” criticizing programs that support diversity, LGBTQ+ individuals, explore the migrant experience and reference progressive political figures.

Some individual artists and arts organizations say their programs already center artists and communities of color, and they’ll keep doing what they’re doing.

Last November, the city of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs Department, led by Ben Johnson, awarded $200,000-plus in grants for its Vibrant Storefronts Initiative. Many artists of color received funding to creative use vacant storefronts.

The department plans to announce its next round of Vibrant Storefronts applications in mid-September.

Tricia Heuring, artistic director at Public Functionary ― which supports career artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, queer, trans and gender fluid ― said the work hasn’t changed.

The organization recognized how destabilizing things started to feel politically this past year, “with the things that seem like direct attacks on artists in our community,” she said.

Public Functionary wants to keep supporting its artists through emerging artist residency programs, exhibitions and mentorships.