Trump Proposes Replacing José de Rivera's 'Infinity' at National Museum with 30-Foot Statue of Washington

On Friday, September 11, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to call for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH) to replace José de Rivera's kinetic sculpture "Infinity" (1967) with a towering 30-foot statue of George Washington. This abstract piece, the first commissioned by the U.S. government, has adorned the museum's entrance for nearly 60 years. Trump criticized the stainless steel Möbius strip, which rotates every eight minutes, as a "strange modernist sculpture" that fails to represent America or honor its heroes. He also urged the Smithsonian to showcase an existing 11-foot Washington statue for Constitution Day on Thursday, September 17, and to organize a five-year exhibition titled "America's Greatest Hero" in anticipation of Washington's 300th birthday in 2032. He accused the NMAH of neglecting to properly honor Washington and the Founding Fathers in its America 250 initiatives, referencing the retirement of Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III and condemning the museum's former Center for Restorative History and its Decolonization Working Group for focusing too much on oppressed groups. This post aligns with Trump's ongoing critique of the Smithsonian's "ideological activism."