Thousands of businesses and organizations closed on January 30 as part of a national day of action against the violent actions of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Hundreds of commercial dealers took part, from blue-chip names (Pace, Paula Cooper, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Gagosian, White Cube) to small storefronts, alongside nonprofits from Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and El Museo del Barrio to collectives in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Galleries cited the killings of Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter Jr. by agents in ICE and Border Patrol operations.

“Cultural spaces don’t just mirror the world around us, they can also help shape it with care, solidarity and responsibility.” — Lisa Carlson, Jane Lombard Gallery

The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and other leading Twin Cities institutions shut down for a January 23 general strike protesting the escalating violence of federal agents in the region’s “Operation Metro Surge.” The report noted a pointed contrast: while the Twin Cities art community mobilized collectively, institutions in most other targeted cities, especially federally funded museums in Washington wary of crossing the administration, largely stayed silent.

Surveying how artists met the immigration crackdown, ARTnews framed the moment as a refusal of the passivity that hindsight always warns against, noting daily arrests had climbed from roughly 300 in 2024 to more than 1,000 in 2025, with detentions surpassing 65,000 by November, most held having no criminal record. LA artist Patrick Martinez emerged as a defining figure: his neon works (“Deport ICE,” “Then They Came for Me,” and “Hold the Ice,” shown at the Hammer’s Made in L.A. biennial) were reprinted on corrugated plastic and handed out in the streets. The Art Newspaper reported the same neons greeting visitors at the entrance to Frieze LA in February.

“They can use my work as a placeholder.” — Patrick Martinez, on those without the language for their fear

On the last preview day of the 61st Venice Biennale, at least 27 of 100 national pavilions were partially or fully shut in the first cultural strike in the exhibition’s 131-year history, a 24-hour action for Palestine and workers’ rights led by the Art Not Genocide Alliance with three Italian unions. Thousands marched to the Arsenale, where riot police blocked the entrance near Israel’s pavilion. Artists in the main show altered or draped their own works; South Africa’s government pulled Gabrielle Goliath’s pavilion, which reopened independently in a Venice church.

“No artist or cultural worker should be asked to share a platform with a state perpetrating genocide.” — striking parties’ joint statement

The University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design canceled Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá, an exhibition by street artist Victor Quiñonez (Marka27), after an anonymous tip flagged work denouncing ICE, including his “I.C.E Scream Series” reworking the paleta into a symbol of systemic oppression. The opening had been set for February 19. The episode is included here deliberately as a hostile-outlet data point: even coverage framing the artist unfavorably documents an institution pulling politically critical work under pressure.