“No Money,” Only Art: Surviving Institutional Destruction in Argentina, 1976 | 2026

Javier Milei’s notorious chainsaw photo-op illustrating his government-shrinking slogan No hay plata (There is No Money) was restaged by Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 20, 2025, with Milei looking on in approval. In the second Trump administration’s first 48 hours, historic cuts to art institutions and granting organizations were underway, in a blend of neoliberal divestment and authoritarian anti-intellectualism that has defined Milei’s tenure in Argentina since December 2023. We know a transnational far right has been sharing strategies since the mid-2010s. My presentation will consider the longer durée of attacks on cultural institutions that, in Argentina, reaches back to the postwar era and ensnares both dictatorships and democratic regimes. With the ominous 50-year anniversary of the 1976 junta arriving on March 24, I will consider key moments of that have built toward Milei’s wholesale defunding in the present day—as well as blueprints for survival that arts professionals have employed both then and now.