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\n\tOn July 14, two Congressional representatives\u2014Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) proposed a bill that would protect public artworks commissioned by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe PRESERVE Act (\u201cProtecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act\u201d) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed \u201csurplus property\u201d and form a committee to oversee the future of said artworks.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPublicly commissioned art should never become collateral damage when federal buildings are sold or otherwise disposed of\u201d said Titus, a co-sponsor of the bill, in a statement. \u201cIt is critical that we establish a process to protect these national treasures and ensure the public has full access to the 26,000 works of art exhibited in museums and federal buildings around the country, no matter who sits in the Oval Office. Art commissioned by the federal government is a vital part of our national heritage and deserves to be preserved for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile the language of the PRESERVE Act does not specifically mention any government buildings, Titus and Doggett\u2019s statement calls out the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building. For the past nine months, preservationists, artists, and senators have been advocating to save the Cohen building, known as the \u201cSistine Chapel of New Deal Art.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe landmark building designed by Charles Z. Klauder opened in 1940 during Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s presidency and was originally home to the Social Security Administration. Its walls are decorated with sweeping murals by Philip Guston, Ben Shahn, and twin sisters Ethel and Jenne Magafan. Despite this, President Trump has threatened to demolish the Cohen building, along with three others.<\/p>\n
\n\tLiving New Deal, a nonprofit that is working on a database of New Deal public artworks across America, is one of the organizations that has endorsed the PRESERVE Act. The organization\u2019s petition, launched in November 2025 to save the Cohen, was in response to the GSA\u2019s new \u201caccelerated disposal\u201d program, which enables federal properties to be sold with limited public input. In the spring of 2025, 45 buildings were listed for accelerated disposal, the Cohen building among them; three more have been added in 2026.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut, as Mary Okin, assistant director of Living New Deal, pointed out. \u201cThe GSA is the primary steward of New Deal art, all of which belongs to the American people.\u201d The point of view of the bill is clear: The agency should be in the business of preserving it, not destroying it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-593346620.jpg?w=1024″] On July 14, two Congressional representatives\u2014Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) proposed a bill that would protect public artworks commissioned by the U.S. government. The PRESERVE Act (\u201cProtecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act\u201d) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2049404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2049404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2049404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2049404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2049404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}