A Kennedy Center staffer who was laid off in March 2025 has recently written a piece for The Atlantic, offering greater insight into what the Center is like under Trump's leadership than the public has previously heard.
Josef Palermo, an artist, producer, and arts organizer, was formerly a Visual Arts Curator at the Center. He has reported on the period between early 2025 (when Trump took over the Center) and Trump's announcement in February 2026 that the Center would close for two years for renovations. Palermo was let go on March 26, 2026.
Palermo alleges that shortly after Trump's shutdown announcement, Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell told him to "get rid of everything" in the permanent collection, because the Center needed all new art for the reopening. He added that Grenell also told him that if the donors of the works didn’t want to pay for their removal, the Center could put them up for auction or give them away.
The permanent collection includes an eight-foot, 3,000-pound brass bust of President Kennedy by the sculptor Robert Berks, which stands in the Center's Grand Foyer, among other treasures of cultural significance.
Palermo says he reported Grenell's instructions to "another top leader," who told him not to do anything because his office would handle it. Whether these artworks will be retained once the Center closes remains to be seen.
Further, Palermo alleges that the decision to close the Center was not purely because of a need for physical...
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