Trump as Art Czar: No, Stranger Things Haven’t Happened

Whoever thought Trump 2.0 would make art-news headlines, day after day? This round, President Trump is the art impresario in chief. What’s happening?

I’ve been to the Kennedy Center only once, to see my old professor Vince Scully get an award. It’s the home of the National Symphony Orchestra but stages Broadway touring companies, concerts, the Mark Twain humor prize, and the Kennedy Center awards. It’s mostly middling, recycled fare, with a few singing scruffs for retired Baby Boomer bureaucrats, all millionaires from fat public pensions. Still, the Kennedy Center raises the tone in what used to be a culturally inert town.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Whoever thought Trump 2.0 would make art-news headlines, day after day? This round, President Trump is the art impresario in chief. What’s happening?

I’ve been to the Kennedy Center only once, to see my old professor Vince Scully get an award. It’s the home of the National Symphony Orchestra but stages Broadway touring companies, concerts, the Mark Twain humor prize, and the Kennedy Center awards. It’s mostly middling, recycled fare, with a few singing scruffs for retired Baby Boomer bureaucrats, all millionaires from fat public pensions. Still, the Kennedy Center raises the tone in what used to be a culturally inert town.