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Obama's Plans For White House Art
Since the culture wars of the 1980s, moderate Democrats have kept their distance from art (especially contemporary art), while Republicans and the religious right have continued to promote the popular misconception that art is nothing but a manifestation of liberal godlessness—easily ignored, and profitably attacked when necessary.
George W. Bush surprised no one when his taste in paintings ran to mid-brow Western scenes of the cowboy sunset school, and no one expected him to stand up for the arts.
That dynamic was evident again last week, when Senate Democrats including Diane Feinstein, Charles Schumer, and Russ Feingoldsupported an amendment introduced by Republican Tom Coburn that prohibited any “museum, theater [or] art center” from receiving funds in the economic-stimulus package. The argument that these would be “non-stimulative” expenditures assumes that “the carpenter who pounds nails framing a set for an opera company is a less-real carpenter than one who pounds nails framing a house," William Ivey, who was the leader of President Obama's transition team on arts-related spending, told the Boston Globe.
The house version of the stimulus package contains a meager $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, which will no doubt become a point of contention in reconciling the House and Senate bills.
In 1998, it was a big deal when Bill and Hillary Clinton not only attended the National Gallery preview of a great Mark Rothko retrospective but even requested a few minutes to walk the galleries alone—explaining that a trip to see Rothkos at Yale was their first date. Hillary also bucked the rule that art in the White House’s permanent collection must be by an artist who has been deceased at least 20 years when she borrowed and hung a Willem de Kooning abstract during the artist’s lifetime.
But Clinton’s support for the arts was largely ceremonial. He did not reverse the Reagan-Bush cuts to the NEA or publicly condemn the fear-mongering and distrust of the visual-art community that had begun during Lynne Cheney’s tenure as head of the National Endowment of the Humanities. Needless to say George W. Bush surprised no one when his taste in paintings ran to mid-brow Western scenes of the cowboy sunset school, and no one expected him to stand up for the arts.
Now the arts community hopes that the private choices the Obamas make for their quarters presage a broader art initiative in the White House.
“I am waiting for the return of a truly refined cosmopolitan sensibility in the White House,” says cultural historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chairman of Harvard’s Department of Afro-American Studies.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Kingbarry: The only thing that makes your posts tolerable is my belief in free speech. You are exactly what is wrong in America today.
frankly, I hope Ms. Obama's and the President's taste in art far exceeds this sampling... I don't disparage the good work of these artists... but I wouldn't choose any of it to live with. and I adore portraiture! with such a world of color and the expression of life that would seem a visual remedy to such stressful times, why would one choose 'drab'? or dark? for daily inspiration?
a world of color includes the "dark" and "dreary". color is represented by life in all of it's reality, not specific to imagery and those soft feel good pastels of a staged presentation. the "dark and dreary" can be inspiration to look beyond the image in front of you and address the substance behind the work, "dark and dreary" as you say, is in all of us. artists or not. "dark and dreary" is the life of many people, if it doesn;t inspire growth, change or progress, then i don't know what does.
The nature of art is to involve the viewer in an ultimately positive experience outside the bounds of his/her 'normal' life. Much of contemporary art seems to be based on the soundbite theory - say something, say anything, only make it quick and short. That said, there is a lot of contemporary work out there that is extraordinary. Appreciating art is not limited to people with Ivy-league educations. If the Obamas manage to awaken more so-called average people to the fact tht there is a whole world of art out there to be seen, to be heard, to be experienced with the mind, the soul and the senses, more power to them. I just hope they don't fall into the fallacy of thinking tht only one type of art is truly 'art'.
Art is as much a part of our history and culture as baseball and milk. It employs people that live in this country and therefore should be as protected by the stimulus as any other endeavor ...BUT and this is a big one....I think that "some" expressions of "Art" have been so stomach turning in the past...body parts and body waste being paid for by our government, that people finally said enough. If someone wants to "do their business on a mat" and call it art? Fine but government funds should not be used to pay for it and in the past? It has been. I think the bigger problem is the art community failure to police theirself that has caused the feeling that government should not be supportive.
Offensive? may be art to some but the majority rules the day and that is a fact the art community has yet to understand.
More power to the Obamas for supporting contemporary artists. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the public shouldn't really have much to say about what is displayed in the presidential family's private residence area. Their taste in art is in no way connected a nationwide vote, as this will not be displayed for the public's benefit. But I imagine FOX news will be weighing in on this when it runs out of other convenient nits to pick in some snide, holier-than-thou, ultra-conservative way.
Smart move. Just what he needs now. Berating corporate executives for their lavish lifestyles at taxpayer expense, lamenting the doom and gloom of future economic prospects, trying to tell everybody to tighten their belt and get ready for the sacrifice. Meanwhile, let me go ahead and start worrying about what multi-million dollar pieces of art I want in my residence. Great. True leadership by example.
This is a great and refreshing concept for what we all hope will be a great and refreshing new administration.
HOWEVER, Mr. Ross' suggestions, while made in the spirit of inclusion, end up trying to satisfy a constituency that I feel backfires. Of course great American women contemporary artists should be included (and he omits an OBVIOUS selection in Kara Walker) but not to the exclusion of any other challenging contemporary American artist - be they male, black, white, Latin etcetera. And to the comment that the Obamas would be choosing million-dollar artworks while the the country is in fiscal crisis?? - well, in all likelihood any of the works chosen for the private areas of the White House would be loans, not purchases. This is a PR win-win for the Obama family and the administration - our contemporary American artists speak to (and from) the variant riches of our shared visual and experienced culture, and even posturing this discussion is a bold move in the right direction at no offense to the public.
Well, they aren't buying the million-dollar art, they are only borrowing it. So I have no beef there. I'd borrow million dollar art too, if I could. And trade it out, regularly, so I could enjoy lots of it.
Leaders have to have down-time, or they are no good to themselves or anyone else. If Mr. Obama is refreshed by spending a little contemplation with a piece of art, good. Cheaper than flying to Texas and back.
Besides, what does this really matter in the scope of things? Mr. Obama is the president of the United States. He needs a safe, comfortable place to just go drop his responsibilities, insofar as that is possible, for a bit every day. Museums and galleries want to loan him expensive art, well, it couldn't be in a much safer place, and it won't make a penny's worth of difference in the security already in place, so it costs nothing to give the man a little peace so he can do his job better.
Leadership is an enormous responsibility, but there are a few perks too.
"some" may call it art....I call it brain farts
not in my house....
First, please remember this is for the private rooms of the White House, not the public rooms. I agree with the idea that Kara Walker should be in my little list, along with several dozen more artists. This was only a small sample of works that might be included as loans to the Obama family. My longer list would run to many pages, but besides Walker would also include younger artists like Taube Auerbach, Carrie Mae Weems, Alexis Smith, Martha Rosler, Amanda Ross-Ho, Mary Heilman, Barbara Kruger, Judith Linhares, Shinique Smith, Leslie Hewitt, Renee Green, Shazia Sikander, and many others. This was meant to be an illustration, not a definitive list, but lists are fun, and I invite others to add others to mine. But at the end of the day, the selection of loans to request (from museums -- not from individuals or commercial entities) will be up to the First Family.
It would be nice to have some photography up in that joint. Maybe some Paul Strand or Alfred Stieglitz? Or maybe some Chuck Close portraits? I'm not familiar with the current WH collection.
What would be really great would be some non-Barack Shepard Fairey pieces.
The selection of politically correct work accompanying the article reflects more than dubious taste -- it shows why contemporary art museums are awash in mediocrity. Museum administrators are courtiers to the wealthy. As this article indicates, they are shamelessly comfortable with the reputation game and art market politics.
A note on the incoherence of groveling political correctness exemplified in this piece: Ross seems to feel his daughters need women artists to inspire -- a betrayal of parental partisan indoctrination rather than an affirmation of quality or value for his daughters. The choices reflect the affectations of the art world bureaucracy -- the true expertise of the author. Hope Obama has more sense than to listen...
Best bet for O: Take contemporary work of a slightly less recent vintage, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and maybe a Guston, and mix with unknown artists currently active chosen by a non art world bureaucrat. This would be an affirmation of taste and help a few artists in the process.
To GVidal, They used to say the same thing about Monet.
There is no WOW factor. The walls in the White House are grand and high. The rooms large and cold to the eye. There must be punch and smack and HELLOOOO in White House modern art. I would expect something more in tune with the energy level of the Obamas. Nothing short of spectacular. Lots of that out there.
Mr. Ross - Thank you for responding to our comments on your article - it is very much appreciated. I am also sure Alexis Smith would be delighted to be considered a younger artist:) - I consider any interesting artist to be ageless, as has been proven to me by the likes of Vija Celmins and Louise Bourgeois. Again, my thanks.
The idea of woman artists as inspiration for the Obama girls is brilliant, some of the works left me with a feeling cold. Have you heard of Los Angeles artist Seta Injeyan? I saw her works at the Los Angeles County Museum and have been hooked. Her website www.setainjeyan.com, and I find her works very powerful, certainly capable of adding warmth and incredible color to the White House walls.
While I appreciate your story and the emphasis you put upon art and the Obamas' influence, most of the works you recommended left me feeling cold. I discovered American-Armenian artist Seta Injeyan's works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art--much warmer and more powerful imagery.
Mr. Ross - A most intelligent and thoughtful article on the lack of understanding & support between past Presidents and the visual arts community. However, there is a global hunger for ALL living artists to have the same opportunity to have their artwork "on view" in the White House. The Internet now provides opportunities for the Obama's to browse & buy artwork from living, self-representing contemporary artists themselves without relying on the selective choices of "the chosen few" decorators or top museum officials. Once again, only certain artists will ever be considered using your traditional method of decorating....leaving hundreds of thousands of artists out in the wasteland. If the President or First Lady were to select a painting from an online art site such as ArtId or Saatchi, they would truly be supporting the arts & stimulating the economy. They would open up the world to buying art online and direct from living artists without the need for going thru galleries or museum directors.
Where would you go to buy original art, a gallery, a street fair, a dealer? There has never been a retail supplier of original art until now. The Internet makes original art available to everyone, the way art should be. The internet has changed the way we communicate, it has opened up global markets, it has changed the way we learn and the way we spend money. Shopping on line is commonplace for everything, clothes, books, jewelry, music, and household goods, everything... but art.
Art is a renewable resource. Art is a purchase that beautifies surroundings, feeds the soul and improves the quality of life. You buy art because you like it, you buy it because you want to look at it for a long time. Art doesn't end up in the back of the closet with the tags still on a year later. Art doesn't get donated to Goodwill when the season is over. You don't put art on the curb come trash day because it broke two days after the warranty expired. Michelle Obama, support the arts by giving a chance to hundreds of thousands of artists - buy art online. The world will follow your lead!
what's lacking in this gallery is passion!!! let's put up some Bill Gersh art---from New Mexico---
why not just have a modern artist paint obama's portrait that will hang in the white house?
TJ and the Tux gave some funny commentary about this on "the 1st 100 days of obama" this week on www.eastvillageradio.com
I think an Ashley Bickerton would be a brilliant choice. Let us not forget that beside being a critically important contemporary American artist, Bickerton grew up in Hawaii as a contemporary of Obama and now resides in Indonesia where Obama spent a good part of his childhood. He would represent a window to Obama's larger history and context.
Thank you.
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