On Demand
Yes We Can Be More Artistically Inclusive
Friday, May 29, 2009
Culture writer Lee Rosenbaum, blogger and contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and Dayo Olopade, Washington reporter at The Root, talk about the revamping of the White House art collection.
Read about the White House art overhaul in the Wall Street Journal
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The Obamas should integrate more American craft and design into the White House decor. They should also give gifts of American craft instead of electronics.
Obama should put up one of the more-controversial pieces from the culture war of the 1980s, to show his renewed commitment to the NEA and the arts. I vote for Andres Serrano's Milk,Blood.
Diego Rivera.
Shameless self promotion here, but I think Obama would really like my depiction of Lincoln. Doris Kerns Goodwin might be interested as well...
http://www.georgeboorujy.com/currentportfolio/cp-abe.html
Thanks for talking about this!
I would love to see 3-D pieces from the artist KAWS.
P.S.: I agree with Amy (1).
It is a painting by a dead white guy, but i think Obama should hang Pablo Picasso's "Guenercia" as a reminder of the true cost of war. Perhaps it will give him pause before ordering military action.
also Ralph Fasanella's populist work depicting immigrant neighborhoods. It would be a way to remind him of the work he did as a young community organizer.
Re: Art in the Obama White House
Anything but Damien Hirst.
ps
If they really want to vex Gingrich, Limbaugh, et al. they can hang a work by Frida Kahlo (proud wise latina and a sometime lover of Trotsky)
who cares about the race of an artist?? this is the problem!!! we are all the same! i don't listen to john coltrane because he was black- it's because his art was beautiful and great.
One thing I would like to see in the White House is the artwork of the Children of the White House. I'm not sure if they actually have this already; if not, they should. The White House represents among other things, family.
Kara Walker! I cannot think of a more relevant artist on the subject of race and gender in our history. And her work is beautiful and technically perfect.
i like danno comment.
put up any keyinde wiley's depictions of urban life.
My opinion: Forget Glen Ligon. Basquiat YES, even Ellen Gallagher would be better than Ligon.
All the usual suspects. Like Jaspar Johns and Rauchenberg need promotion. Or Glenn Ligon etc. The art world is a bunch of lemmings with everyone thinking that they have an original and open minded vision as they promote the same old same old. All the museums today are like McDonalds- no matter where in the world you go you're going to consume the same meal. Hirst, Snchnabel, Johns, Dunham, Bleckner, Basquiat, and on and on.
Kadir Nelson
http://www.kadirnelson.com
What about political artists like Nancy Spero, Leon Golub and Jenny Holzer?
Felix Gonzalez-Torres' work would be a good choice in the sense that it deals critically with complex social issues in the most personal, generous way possible.
Are they considering works by artist Kara Walker?
I suggest the works of Clementine Hunter, an African-AMerican female painter of the last century with a primitive, colorful style that depicts her life in Louisiana. Much of her work is in the hands of private collectors who knew her in her lifetime, but there is a vast store of works in Melrose Plantation in Louisian, somewhere near Nachitochish. (prounced Nack-it-ish)
I'd like to see some prints by Jacob Lawrence,
Afr-American artist of the 20th century. There's one called "The Library" and several on manufacturing and trades. There's also the "Migration series," a semi-abstract series of paintings documenting the Afr-Amer movement of workers from the South to the North, which started in the mid thirties, I believe.
Haven't gay artists always been exhibited in museums?
I'd like to see the Nabis painter Maurice Denis and or Lucien Freud in the permenent collection of the White House!
John Ahearn who has three fine works at Socrates.
I remember in my childhood a painting that had an impression on me, my public school had a painting of a Norman Rockwell,depicting an African American child in a white dress, being tossed tomatoes at while being integrated into a white school.
Spoke volumes to me as a child.
I would like to see a huge Jackson Pollock canvas hung among the portraits.
The White House should have a pot from Dave the Slave, a pre-Civil War artist who was one of the most remarkable artists in American history, not least because he was a slave that could read and write.
His work is beautiful, and adorned with witty poems. If anyone deserves a place in the White House, it is him.
ISAMU NOGUCHI
Kehinde Wiley!!! Great Af. American artist!
http://www.kehindewiley.com/
I would love to see a Gees Bend Quilt hanging up in the White House.
http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/history/
I would suggest that the Obamas consider purchasing some of the meaningful photographic work of Gordon Parks. His contribution to views of AMerican black life is outstanding.
Additionally, the reproduction of his work in books has reached millions of folks.
AND, what about the powerful images of Jacob Lawrence who detailed the migration of southern blacks to the north in vivid paintings?
My grandmother, Helen Hoff Aupperle, was a painter of note from Idaho who did many beautiful landscapes of the West, and portraits of the Native Americans that lived in the area in the early and mid-20th century. She captured many of their traditional ceremonies, and costumes as well as important people before their culture was completely displaced.
http://henrysforkcountry.org/atf.php?sid=162
It would be great to see something in the White House that was not only beautiful art, but simultaniously representis a female artist, Native American culture, and the West.
Or perhaps one of the large Brice Marden Cold Mountain paintings.
Or the quilts from Gee's Bend. They are a true representation of the quilt tradition.
Maybe they should start by commissioning a nice bronze sculpture for the White House garden.
I CALLED INTO THE SHOW AND RECOMMENDED THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTIST ROBERT BLACKBURN.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE ROBERT BLACKBURN PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP NOW LOCATED AT THE ELIZABETH FOUNDATION, AND SEE WHAT YOU THINK (http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/Robert-Blackburn-Printmaking-Workshop/25672695930) AND CHECK OUT WHO HE WAS (www.nytimes.com/2003/04/25/arts/robert-blackburn-82-founder-of-the-printmaking-workshop.html), AND SEE IF YOU DON'T AGREE! HE IS AN OUTSTANDING CANDIDATE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION.
David Garibaldi would be a great artist for the White House. www.garibaldiarts.com
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