2026-10-19T10:30:44.739Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
去年夏天，肯尼迪艺术中心深陷法律与政治动荡之际，董事会成员曾讨论过，在主建筑关闭翻修期间，将标志性的8英尺高、3000磅重的约翰·F·肯尼迪总统青铜半身像从大门厅移走。
据熟悉董事会讨论情况的消息人士透露，他们认为将雕像转移至新建筑不仅能保护这件艺术品，还能确保整个园区继续作为这位第35任总统的鲜活纪念地。
但他们当时并不知道——但很快就会发现——这座半身像被固定在地下数英尺的建筑地基中，从技术层面来看根本无法移动。消息人士称，因此半身像将留在原地，施工期间会对其加以保护。
这座由肯尼迪家族委托并捐赠的半身像的命运，凸显了近几个月来肯尼迪艺术中心在清点和保护馆藏艺术品方面的杂乱无章。该中心收藏着数百件不可替代的艺术珍品和文物，包括挂毯、雕塑和吊灯等，均由其他国家和捐赠者捐赠或出借。
六位不愿具名的消息人士向CNN透露，数月来，忧心忡忡的捐赠者、艺术家及其家属不断致电、发邮件给肯尼迪艺术中心，询问目前有哪些保护艺术品的措施、他们捐赠的作品是否会被临时转移，以及最终能否物归原处。
一些捐赠者提议将自己的作品转移至博物馆或其他场所——远离肯尼迪艺术中心。还有一些人告诉CNN，他们担心在自己珍视的艺术品仍留在中心内时公开发声。
“我想把那件雕塑移出去，”一位向该中心捐赠过作品的人士说道。
对馆藏艺术品的焦虑去年年底开始加剧，当时肯尼迪艺术中心官员制定了一项永久移除艺术品的计划，其中设想了多种“处置”方式，包括“归还来源国、与其他机构转移或交换、公开拍卖或销毁”，CNN查阅的内部文件显示。
随后，身为肯尼迪艺术中心董事会主席的唐纳德·特朗普总统多次发表言论，加剧了人们对艺术品的担忧：他威胁要拆除这座表演艺术中心、上月移除了中心园区内的一件大型户外雕塑，还新增了一幅自己的金箔肖像。
肯尼迪艺术中心官员如今表示，CNN审查的这份提案从未被设想为全面清退艺术品。他们坚称“馆藏的基石——为中心开幕赠予的历史性国际礼品——完好无损”，并表示该机构正在探索新增更多艺术品。
许多作品都是作为友好姿态和纪念约翰·F·肯尼迪的礼物被捐赠的。在肯尼迪遇刺当天，美国雕塑家罗伯特·伯克斯就开始创作这座半身像，并于1971年中心开幕当天安装完成。
官员们还告诉CNN，所有艺术品在翻修期间都会“得到全面保护”。他们表示，如果为确保艺术品安全以及施工期间的安全有必要，部分作品将被临时搬迁，还有一些作品则不会移动。
例如，奥地利捐赠的标志性星芒状洛迈尔水晶吊灯，宽60英尺，拥有超过3200个灯泡，预计将在翻修期间留在原地。歌剧院外的朱利叶斯·鲁德尔青铜半身像——该中心首位艺术与音乐总监——的安置方案正在讨论中。
“我们一直与向中心捐赠艺术品的基金会和机构保持定期联系，”肯尼迪艺术中心的一位发言人告诉CNN。
与此同时，特朗普的翻修计划——以及他将自己的名字刻在建筑外墙上的努力——仍处于法庭诉讼之中。官员们表示，肯尼迪艺术中心园区内的小型场馆REACH仍将作为肯尼迪的临时纪念地。
随着肯尼迪艺术中心暂时闭馆，工作人员正准备进行为期两年的翻修，艺术品捐赠者和爱好者们纷纷试图了解事态进展，并担心出现最糟糕的情况：从艺术品在施工中受损到被意外丢弃。
该中心前策展人何塞夫·巴勒莫描述了非洲休息室在一天内被清空的场景。这间展厅存放着数十件非洲国家捐赠的作品，其中包括尼日利亚一棵700年古树雕刻而成的12英尺高的双开门。
“走进去时，房间空荡荡、黑漆漆的，我的心一下子沉了下去，”巴勒莫在接受CNN采访时说道。“整个房间被洗劫一空。”
如今，这间展厅被用作储物间。
肯尼迪艺术中心表示，非洲展厅的艺术品仍留在场地内，保护工作正在进行中。
“非常令人担忧的是，很多艺术品在中心内被推来推去，”一位与多位捐赠者有合作的肯尼迪艺术中心内部人士说道。
据几位向CNN透露消息的人士称，该中心似乎愿意接受将艺术品移至其他地方展出的建议。
但他们表示，这些沟通都是临时拼凑的，往往是由捐赠者和艺术家家属主动发起，而非中心主动启动。
“应对方式有些混乱，”这位肯尼迪艺术中心内部人士说道。“对此的回应非常不充分，或者说不够明确，要么就是‘一切安全无忧，请放心’之类的套话，”该人士表示——但捐赠者“完全得不到任何细节信息”。
消息人士称，肯尼迪艺术中心的艺术品编目系统此前一直混乱不堪。今年以来，情况愈发糟糕：中心财政状况恶化、数十名员工被裁员，内部装饰也进行了改动。
与此同时，档案材料被用作建筑内不同办公室的装饰品。
今年春天中心裁员期间，一些消息人士称，工作人员无意中将纪念品带回家，比如 technically 属于中心档案的肯尼迪艺术中心荣誉奖签名海报。
部分礼品和贵重资产，包括奥地利捐赠的吊灯备用水晶，都存放在中心内一处防火防水的储物设施中。
该艺术机构还在弗吉尼亚州租用了一处储物仓库，并刚刚续签了十年租约。意大利捐赠的、构成建筑白色外立面的部分剩余大理石就存放在那里。
今年早些时候，肯尼迪艺术中心聘请了首席档案管理员奥利维亚·赫歇尔，负责监督和管理其艺术品目录。
如今，七个月后，该中心在给CNN的一份声明中表示，“本机构历史上首次对馆藏进行了全面编目，这标志着新领导层在保护工作中迈出了重要一步”。
赫歇尔也成为了与寻求答案的捐赠者和艺术家的非官方联络人。向CNN透露消息的人士表示，他们定期与赫歇尔沟通，并得到保证，艺术品的任何进展都会及时告知他们。
尽管消息人士称赫歇尔工作投入、态度诚恳，但他们也质疑，在特朗普政府的管理框架下，她有多大权力兑现自己的承诺。
该中心拒绝让赫歇尔接受采访。
展示美国最优秀音乐、艺术和戏剧的国家文化中心的构想，在二战后由德怀特·艾森豪威尔总统逐步成形，他于1958年签署法案，在波托马克河畔打造一处国家表演艺术空间。该空间被设想为“艺术圣地……将向来自各国的游客开放”。
肯尼迪这位忠实的艺术赞助人延续了艾森豪威尔的愿景。第一夫人杰奎琳·肯尼迪牵头为中心筹款，1962年，在一场电视筹款活动中，肯尼迪向全国阐述了他认为该中心为何意义重大。
“时至今日，艺术始终不受国界限制，”他说道。“诗人、艺术家、音乐家仍在延续几个世纪以来的默默工作，在各国人民之间搭建起经验的桥梁。”
“艺术在最深刻的意义上具有政治性，”肯尼迪补充道。
不到一年后，他遇刺身亡。
当时，该中心的总法律顾问拉尔夫·贝克尔受命协调外国政要的捐赠事宜。他后来写道，在肯尼迪去世后的几小时内，他就开始讨论将该机构以肯尼迪的名字重新命名的事宜。
肯尼迪遇刺后，世界各国领导人纷纷向贝克尔提出向中心捐赠艺术品的请求。意大利从著名的卡拉拉山区提供了建筑外立面所需的大理石——这片矿区也曾为米开朗基罗的《大卫》提供石材。
加拿大为艾森豪威尔剧院提供了幕布；法国捐赠了亨利·马蒂斯的挂毯；印度为大门厅设计制作了20个特制花盆；挪威为音乐厅提供了11盏吊灯；突尼斯为屋顶露台捐赠了一件3世纪马赛克的复制品。
随着肯尼迪艺术中心的未来悬而未决，向CNN透露消息的人士担忧该中心艺术品的长期规划，以及特朗普是否会用更符合其喜好的作品取而代之。
如今已成为举报人之一的巴勒莫曾表示，去年他被告知要移除所有户外艺术品，包括抽象雕塑《蓝色》，因为特朗普希望“重新开放时使用全新的艺术品”。
今年9月该作品被突然移除的举动似乎印证了人们的担忧，尽管肯尼迪艺术中心称，这座已安放7年的雕塑被拆除是“常规操作”。
肯尼迪艺术中心官员告诉CNN，目前没有其他计划或即将进行的馆藏艺术品调整。
但本月，在未发布任何公开公告的情况下，肯尼迪艺术中心召开了首次“视觉艺术委员会”会议——由工作人员和董事会成员组成的小组，旨在策划和扩展表演艺术与视觉艺术的公共展示。
该委员会将通过轮换展览的方式管理视觉艺术的新增工作，展览将对公众开放——比如最近向REACH临时出借的特朗普和埃隆·马斯克的金箔肖像展。
Exclusive: Donors fear the worst for Kennedy Center’s art amid renovations uncertainty
2026-10-19T10:30:44.739Z / CNN
At the height of legal and political tumult at the Kennedy Center last summer, board members discussed moving the iconic eight-foot, 3,000-pound bronze bust of President John F. Kennedy from the Grand Foyer while the main building closed for renovations.
They reasoned the move to a newer building would not only secure the artwork but ensure the campus remained a living memorial to the 35th president, according to sources familiar with the board discussions.
What they didn’t know – but would soon find out – was that the bust is bolted into the foundation of the building, multiple feet underground, and moving it wouldn’t be logistically feasible. So, it will remain in place, sources say, and be shielded during construction.
The fate of the bust, which was commissioned and gifted by the Kennedy family, underscores the haphazard efforts in recent months to catalog and protect the treasures in the Kennedy Center. The building houses hundreds of irreplaceable pieces of art and antiquities – including tapestries, sculptures and chandeliers – that have been donated or loaned by other countries and benefactors.
Worried donors, artists and their family members have been calling and emailing the Kennedy Center for months, asking about what’s being done to protect the artwork, whether their pieces will be temporarily moved, and if they’ll one day be returned, according to half a dozen people who spoke to CNN on the condition they remain anonymous.
Some donors are suggesting arrangements for their pieces to be moved to museums and other places – away from the Kennedy Center. And some told CNN they feared speaking out publicly while the artwork they care about is still inside the center.
“I want to get that sculpture out of there,” said one person who donated a piece to the center.
Apprehension over the collection began to fester late last year when officials devised a plan for permanently removing artwork that envisioned possible “disposal” through various means, including “return to country of origin, transfer or exchange with another institution, public sale, or destruction,” according to internal documents reviewed by CNN.
Then, President Donald Trump, who is chairman of the Kennedy Center board, repeatedly stoked fears about the artwork with threats of demolishing the performing arts center, the removal last month of a major outdoor sculpture from the center’s grounds and the addition of a gold-leaf portrait of himself.
Kennedy Center officials now say the proposal CNN reviewed was never envisioned as a sweeping purge of artwork. They insist the “cornerstone of the collection – historic international gifts given to the Center for its opening – remains intact” and that the institution is exploring adding further works.
Many of the pieces were given as gestures of goodwill and in commemoration of John F. Kennedy. On the day of his assassination, the American sculptor Robert Berks began work on what would become the bust that was installed on the day the institution opened in 1971.
Officials also tell CNN that all artwork will be “fully safeguarded” during the renovation. Some pieces will be temporarily relocated, they said, if necessary to ensure they’re protected and that safety is maintained during construction. And some pieces won’t be moved.
For instance, an iconic starburst Lobmeyr crystal chandelier, a gift from Austria that’s 60 feet wide and illuminated by more than 3,200 bulbs, is expected to stay during the renovation. A plan for the bronze bust of Julius Rudel outside the Opera House, the first artistic and music director of the center, is being discussed.
“We remain in regular contact with the foundations and entities who have donated art to the Center,” a Kennedy Center spokesperson told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump’s renovation plans – and his efforts to put his name on the facade – are still the subjects of a court fight. Officials say the REACH, a smaller venue on the Kennedy Center complex, will still serve as a temporary living memorial to JFK.
With the Kennedy Center’s doors temporarily closed and officials readying for a two-year renovation, art donors and enthusiasts are scrambling to understand what’s happening and fearing the worst – from artwork becoming collateral damage during construction to being accidentally thrown away.
Josef Palermo, a former curator at the institution, described the Africa Lounge being cleared out in one day. The room housed dozens of works donated by African nations, including 12-foot double doors carved from a 700-year-old tree in Nigeria.
“Walking into it when it was hollowed out and darkened and my heart really sank,” Palermo told CNN in an interview. “The room was completely stripped bare.”
The room is now being used for storage.
The Kennedy Center says the African room art remains on site and that preservation efforts are underway.
“There is a major concern that a lot of this artwork is being pushed around the center,” one person close the Kennedy Center who works with several donors said.
The institute has seemed open to finding a way to accommodate suggestions for artwork to be displayed elsewhere, according to several people who spoke to CNN.
But these conversations are happening in an ad hoc manner, they said, often driven by donors and families of the artists, and not being initiated by the institution.
“It is a little bit disjointed response,” the person close the Kennedy Center said. “Responses on this have been very inadequate or not clear, or you know ‘everything is safe and sound, rest assured’ kind of thing,” the person said – but donors are “not given any detail in any way.”
The system for cataloguing art inside the Kennedy Center had been disorganized, sources say. Adding to the disarray this year, the center’s finances tanked, scores of staff were laid off and changes were made to the interior decor.
At the same time, archival materials have been used as decorations in different offices throughout the building.
When the center underwent layoffs this spring, some sources said that staff inadvertently took home mementos, such as such as signed Kennedy Center Honors posters that are technically part of its archives.
Some gifts and valuable assets, including the spare crystals for the chandelier from Austria, are housed in a fire- and flood-proof storage facility at the center.
The arts institution also rents a storage facility in Virginia and just renewed the ten-year lease. That’s where some of the remaining marble, donated by Italy, that makes up the white facade of the building is kept.
And earlier this year, the Kennedy Center hired a lead archivist, Olivia Herschel, to oversee and manage its catalogue of artwork.
Now, seven months later, the center said in a statement to CNN that “for the first time in our institution’s history, the collection has been comprehensively cataloged, marking a significant step in the preservation efforts of new leadership.”
Herschel also has become an unofficial liaison with donors and artists seeking answers. Sources who spoke to CNN say they’ve been in touch regularly and were given assurances they will be told of any developments with the artwork.
While sources describe her as engaged and respectful, they also question how much power she has to deliver on her assurances given the dynamics under the Trump administration.
The center declined to make Herschel available for an interview.
The idea of a national cultural center that showcased the best of American music, art and drama started to take shape after World War II under President Dwight Eisenhower, who signed a law to create a national performing arts space on the banks of the Potomac River in 1958. The space was envisioned as an “artistic Mecca … that would be open to visitors from every land.”
Kennedy – a devoted patron of the arts – carried Eisenhower’s vision forward. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy helped lead efforts to raise money for the center and in 1962, during a televised fundraiser, the president told the nation why he believed the center would be invaluable.
“Today, as always, art knows no national boundaries,” he said. “The poet, the artist, the musician, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples.”
“Art is political in the most profound sense,” Kennedy added.
Less than a year later, he was assassinated.
At the time, Ralph Becker, the general counsel for the center, was tasked with helping to coordinate donations from foreign dignitaries. He later wrote that he began having discussions about renaming the institution in Kennedy’s honor within hours of the president’s death.
World leaders began flooding Becker with requests to donate artwork to the center after Kennedy’s assassination. Italy supplied the marble to form the facade of the building from the famed Carrara mountains – the same mountains that produced the marble for Michaelangelo’s David.
Canada provided the curtains for the Eisenhower theater; France donated tapestries by Henri Matisse, and India created 20 specially designed planters for the Grand Foyer. Norway supplied 11 chandeliers for the concert hall, and Tunisia donated a reproduction of a 3rd century mosaic for the rooftop terrace.
With the future of the Kennedy Center building in limbo, sources who spoke to CNN wondered about the long-term plans for the artwork and whether Trump will replace it with pieces more to his liking.
Palermo, now a whistleblower, has said that he was told last year to remove all the outdoor art, including the abstract “Blue” sculpture, because Trump wanted “all new art for the reopening.”
The abrupt removal of that work in September seemed to confirm concerns, even as the Kennedy Center said deinstallation after seven years was “common practice.”
Kennedy Center officials tell CNN that there are no other planned or imminent changes to the artwork currently on display.
But this month, with no public announcement, the Kennedy Center convened its first “visual arts committee” – a panel of staff and board members who will aim to curate and expand public installations of performing and visual arts.
The committee will manage the addition of visual art through rotating displays that will be open to the public — like the recent addition of gold-leaf portraits on temporary loan to the REACH featuring Trump and Elon Musk.