Obama Official Portrait Controversy

I think they are great art. Cannot at all see where any controversy would be. Too many people see the world through some ********** up colored glasses.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Hannity.
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There that’s so much better.
 
I think the controversy is they don't look like photographs and they were painted by brown people.
 
As a sometime portrait artist I feel I can weigh in here...

There are a few angles of criticism and I'll address them as I think of them.

Initial impression:
Uh, yeah...
President Obama -- garish
Michelle Obama -- ghastly

Artistic value:
It''s difficult to be anything but subjective about their artistic merit. Given both artists' bodies of work, the paintings seem to be well within their styles, and the results should not have come to a surprise to the Obamas when they were revealed. I was not aware of their styles (and the intent) and I (like many others) assumed these would be hanging in the West Wing with the rest of the Presidential portraits.

Sometimes I'm a little put off when art's "value" is more dependent on the artist's name and reputation rather than actual skill. But there's a trade-off. Are you there to experience the subject, or the creator?

Neither is exactly a photographic likeness. But if they wanted a photo they would have gotten a photographer. I do think Obama's skin tones are quite garish, and Michelle's way too subdued. I'm not impressed with her depiction of her anatomy or facial structure, and something really bugs me about the hair. (I remember a "Man on the Street" segment from somewhere where the reporter tried to get people to identify her without her hair in the photo. People had about a difficult a time as they did when viewing of photo of this.) I for one would like to have seen more delicate use of skin tone and rich browns, since these are, you know, the first brown people in the line of Presidencies.

They would probably not be appropriate for hanging in the White House, but at the Smithsonian with the other artistic renditions of presidents, why not?
 
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blutoski said:
I think the disconnect on this one is that these are not the official White House portraits.

These are the 'artsy' portraits for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Here's Bill Clinton's: [Bill Clinton (Chuck Close, 2011)]

ETA: the stick figure in the bottom right is George Bush's portrait.
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Ah, that makes much more sense. In that light these portraits do seem to fit right in. I kinda like that Clinton one, even if it does make him look a little like a drunk.
 
Belz... said:
What controversy?

Oh, right. Everything's a controversy now. Stupid internet.
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Semantically, any disagreement, however small, can be called a "controversy."

That doesn't warrant the attention the media affords 90% of them.
 
Brainster said:
Ah, that makes much more sense. In that light these portraits do seem to fit right in. I kinda like that Clinton one, even if it does make him look a little like a drunk.
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Clinton looked bad when he left office. He actually looked healthier ten years later when he lost weight.

Most presidents look haggard after leaving. Dubya actually still looked good, but all the others in my lifetime looked like they aged 20 years in between.
 
Given the Clinton and Bush context provided, any controversy is just people looking for things to argue about.

Does anybody else see that the Michelle portrait is a black and white photo style painting where the photographer picks a couple areas to allow the color to be revealed? That’s where I see the skin tone coming from. If I were being artsy, which I’m not, I would say the attempt to color blind the painting was an interesting choice. This wasn’t the “black” or “brown” First Lady. This was the First Lady. If that’s the message, I like it.

Isn’t art fun?

If it’s a dress ad, then I’m not a fan.
 
theprestige said:
When in doubt, accuse everyone else of racism.
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I did see a few FB replies about this that showed pics of Curious George or other monkeys (on the Smithsonian's own post about the portraits, actually!) with quite a few 'likes'. That makes a far greater point about that poster and the folks who liked the reply than anything else, of course. Showing such people for what they are is valuable, of course, but why do there have to be so many ignorant, racist dicks on the internet now?
 
theprestige said:
I don't see anything controversial in either painting. Michelle's portrait is just bad. How can you set out to paint a portrait where the subject is unrecognizable, and their outfit is the focus of the work? If you didn't know it was supposed to be the first lady, you'd think a clothing designer had been sketching a dress idea and put in a generic model to wear it.
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The strangest element of the Michelle portrait is that she is painted in shades of gray, like a black and white photograph, but other elements are in color. Odd choice for a portrait of an African American woman. But this critic seems to like it.
The racializing schema of Sherald’s work is to “exclude the idea of color as race,” she has said, in her artist’s statement. To Sherald, the photorealistic depiction of race—a quality determined by others’ eyes, externally—is a dead end. Applied to Michelle Obama, the lack of brown in the skin feels first like a loss, and then like a real gain.
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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/a...ry-of-amy-sheralds-portrait-of-michelle-obama
 
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