Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2026

Abstract

In 2025, the painter Amy Sherald pulled her show American Sublime from the Smithsonian after the museum considered removing a painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty to avoid angering President Trump. The Baltimore Museum of Art stepped in, and it was important that it did. American Sublime needs to be seen in person. It comprises dozens of portraits of Black Americans—a farmer, a bicyclist, a balloon-holder, a child on a playground slide. The portraits are dignified, beautiful, warm, and alluring. They are, in a word, human.

In the gallery, the paintings were hung low on the walls to increase the chances of an eye-to-eye encounter. They create an invisible but tangible current between the body on the canvas and that of the viewer in the gallery—like an invitation to telepathic conversation. Place and space, Sherald seems to tell us, are catalysts of connection and the possibility for shared story.

And it is in this way, this essay argues, that Sherald and American Sublime offer an answer to the question of why our democracy is broken and how to repair it: human connection in physical space. Standing face to face, acknowledging one another’s humanity and dignity, and forging a connection through conversation and story. If we cannot do this and do it regularly, democracy and rule of law will assuredly fail.

Art can spark this connection. But it is for us and our institutions to carry this work forward on a daily basis. This essay argues that the free press is perhaps the most important democratic institution that can do this. It has the freedom, and we can give it the capacity, to facilitate the connection that we need—especially at the local level. Specifically, this essay offers up thoughts about invigorating local news to do the work that Sherald calls us to.

Publication Citation

57 U. Pac. L. Rev. 385 (2026).

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