{"id":260243,"date":"2026-08-28T20:08:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/28\/according-to-the-state-department-kehinde-wiley-is-just-the-beginning-more-art-could-be-removed-and-sold-from-embassies\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T20:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:08:32","slug":"according-to-the-state-department-kehinde-wiley-is-just-the-beginning-more-art-could-be-removed-and-sold-from-embassies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/28\/according-to-the-state-department-kehinde-wiley-is-just-the-beginning-more-art-could-be-removed-and-sold-from-embassies\/","title":{"rendered":"According to the State Department, Kehinde Wiley Is Just the Beginning: More Art Could Be Removed and Sold From Embassies"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It\u2019s no secret that the current presidential administration has a passion for interior decorating. That extends to Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s diplomatic corps\u2014and, conveniently enough, ambassadors always have the purview to switch up the look and feel of their respective consulates through the artwork on view. And so, in July, the local emissaries of the State Department<\/a> decided to tweak the decor at the US Embassy to the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo\u2014including removing artwork that had been commissioned to hang permanently on the walls.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s ambassador to the DR is Leah Campos, an Arizona-born former CIA<\/a> officer, whose sister, former Real World<\/em> contestant Rachel Campos-Duffy, is a co-host of Fox and Friends<\/a> Weekend married to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy<\/a>. This spring, Leah Campos\u2019s residence manager, Paola Rivera, posted a tour<\/a> of the new art on Campos\u2019s walls, which was chosen from the collection of Art in Embassies, the organization that has acquired and commissioned hundreds of artworks to be displayed in embassies and ambassadors\u2019 homes. There\u2019s one rather unexpected curatorial choice. On one wall, the ambassador installed Marc Lipp\u2019s Fight Fight Fight,<\/em> a depiction of Trump with a bloody ear and raised fist painted by one of the president\u2019s favorite Palm Beach watercolorists. And on another, there\u2019s Jasper Johns\u2019s Tattered Banner,<\/em> a lithograph that was donated to the Art in Embassies collection by Leo Castelli.<\/p>\n

But more changes were in store for the embassy itself. Earlier this summer, Kehinde Wiley\u2019s Young Artists After Siamesas<\/em>\u2014a commissioned painting that depicts four local art students, and that is described in official State Department literature still available<\/a> on its website as a work that \u201cmasterfully weaves together disparate historical and cultural elements into a cohesive image\u201d\u2014was not just obscured, but fully covered up by a jingoism-plastered tarp.<\/p>\n

In August, Campos posted a video<\/a> of the painting being removed from the wall, getting stuffed into storage material, and being carted off to an undisclosed location.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies and instead embracing American patriotism and the beauty of our great country! \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the State Department sent me a statement from the Ambassador Leah Campos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my intention that everything we project from US Embassy Santo Domingo, including the art and decor, reflect the beauty, strength, and commitment to liberty of the United States of America and its people,\u201d Campos said.<\/p>\n

When I reached her for comment on Friday, Erin Scavino, the director of Art in Embassies at the State Department, told me she defended the decision to take down the painting. Simply put, the Wiley went against the embassy\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe painting depicts four Dominican artists whom Wiley selected after immersing himself in the local art community,\u201d Scavino says. \u201cIn my view, the mission of an America First State Department is not simply to use American diplomatic facilities to promote the people and culture of another nation. Cultural exchange and works that meaningfully connect American and host-country history and culture would be a more appropriate expression of cultural diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n