Want to know the Obama Administration’s idea of what constitutes art?  There’s no better place to look than the newly-reconstituted White House art collection.  So what’s there?  How about this gem:

Yes, it is boring and banal.  It does look like your three-year-old’s recent construction paper cut-out from pre-school – the one she made with the rounded scissors.  It’s Watusi (Hard Edge), by black painter Alma Thomas.

Now here’s Henri Matisse’s The Snail (1953).

Notice any similarities?  How about now:

That’s right.  It’s a direct copy of the Matisse picture rotated 90 degrees and the colors inverted.  What magnificent art.

Sort of reminiscent of the Shepherd Fairey plagiaristic “art” poster for Obama, ripped off directly from an AP photo:

But let’s not assume that all Obama’s art is this bad.  Let’s look at it.  How about this masterpiece by Ed Ruscha, appropriately entitled “I Think I’ll…”:

Isn’t that magnificent?  It certainly sums up Obama’s thinking process, which is based on considering all the options, then eating a cup of applesauce and taking a nap while waiting for mommy (read: Valerie Jarrett) to make a decision.

Or how about another Alma Thomas piece, “Sky Light,” which could more appropriately be titled “inverted ant races on your broken television set”:

Then there’s “Berkeley, No. 52,” by Richard Diebenkorn (1955), which aptly sums up how the world must have looked to Obama while attending a liberal college and doing cocaine:

And, in case we forgot that the Obama’s are black, the text of “Black Like Me” on a piece of canvas (Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me No. 2”):

It’s as though the Obamas decided to do a poll as to what Americans would least like to post in their living rooms, then adopted all the top choices, with special credit to black artists based on their race.  No doubt, Malia and Sasha will have an entire wing of the White House dedicated to their Play-Doh sculptures.  And the New York Times will praise their artistic flair.

In essence, the Obamas are elitists who think that the inscrutable is deep, and that the incompetent is profound.  Sadly, President Obama’s presidency is the same as his art: something that outsiders assume has substance, even in the absence of substance.

[Ed update: first two images are now in the correct order.]

All Quiet on the Western Front, 1997

In 2001 I wanted to create a work of art that would fuse Jasper Johns flag and Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell Soup Can paintings titled “Choices” with a little Ed Ruscha thrown in for good measure. The soup can paintings were all identical except for the flavors on the cans and that’s what I would do to my Johns inspired flags. All identical, as much as you can make thirty-two separate paintings, except in this case, instead of flavors, each vertical flag painting would have an almost invisible word at the bottom.

The words would be made up of 16 couples or opposites. It would be a glimpse into some of what we’re made of without judgement. There would be love on one painting and hate on another, as well as war and peace, black and white, rich and poor, hope and fear, young and old and so on. However, two things would happen that would put them off for awhile: 1) a horrific display of all that’s wrong with the world and 2) all that’s right with the world and why we keep trying.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the phone rang-it was my landlord. He called to say that the property and the building my wife and I rented had been sold and we would have to make plans to move. When we finished our conversation, I hung up the phone and turned to see and hear Katie Couric interrupt whatever she was involved in at the time to announce that “a small plane” had struck one of the buildings of the World Trade Center, that’s how I remember the moment.

The rest is history and in comparison and on reflection, moving would be the last thing we worried about for a few of weeks. We started to get back to our own realities and we started to get ready to look for and buy our first home.

I can’t remember when it happened, but during this time, my wife would wonder and we would find out that she was pregnant. Long story shorter, my beautiful boy would be born on June 14, 2002, and someone close to me that day would ask me if I knew what day it was? Of course I knew, I said, it’s the day our son was born – and he said, ”Yeah, and it also happens to be Flag Day today…isn’t that awesome?”  Yes, it was!

It would take two years to complete “Choices” and every piece of wood would be cut outside and put together in the back of my truck, from the panels for the paintings to the raw wood that I would build the frames from. It was a labor of love and I believe well worth the effort.

Choices

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Peace & War (detail of "Choices")

I hope someday people who get the opportunity to see them will understand that I tried within reason to make a piece that will inspire. I know some people will find fault with its premise, that we are who we are, good and bad. It is my belief that my country is still the greatest nation on this planet and it’s my intention to be on the side that will continue to defend what our founding fathers fought for and created.

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Have a great Flag Day and Happy Birthday to my beautiful boy!!!