Perhaps not since John F. Kennedy, whose dusty portraits can still be seen in kitchens and barbershops and alongside the antique beer cans at bars like Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta, has a presidency so fanned the flames of painterly ardor among hobbyist and professional artists.
Mr. Obama’s campaign was well known for inspiring art, including Shepard Fairey’s ubiquitous “Hope” poster, a version of which is now in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Months after the election, with the glow of the administration’s first 100 days dimming, it might have been expected that enthusiasm for Obama art would be dimming, too…
The phenomenon has been a boon to the near-anonymous painting factories crowded together in the suburbs of Shenzhen, China, famous for cranking out copies of masterpieces, along with landscapes and semitasteful nudes. Another one, seemingly based in Germany, offers stately Obamas amid air-brushy likenesses of Tupac Shakur, Bruce Lee and Al Pacino (in his “Scarface” role), advertised as “real hand-embellished” paintings on canvas.
Market interest has also helped small-time artists like Dan Lacey, of tiny Elko, Minn., a self-described disillusioned conservative who made a name for himself last year in the blogosphere with his inexplicably strange portraits of Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin depicted with pancakes stacked on top of their heads…
Lately, he has turned to Mr. Obama, cranking out both eBay-ready conventional portraits — “I hate to say this, but I can do ones like that in about an hour,” he said — and even stranger works that have tended toward portrayals of the 44th president naked on a unicorn, often performing gallant deeds like wrestling a bear on Wall Street or taking the controls of the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River…
Mr. Lacey, who admits to parting with paintings for as little as $1 on the Web, said he sold his president-wrestling-a-bear fantasia for $600 and recently received a commission for a unicorn-themed Obama. He intends to ride the surging presidential art wave as long as it will keep him afloat.
During the previous administration, he said, he had also tried his hand at some portraits of George W. Bush but added, in a tone that mingled regret with professional candor, “You really couldn’t sell them.”
Har!
“…portrayals of the 44th president naked on a unicorn, often performing gallant deeds like wrestling a bear on Wall Street or taking the controls of the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River…”
What?? Are these people sick? What the hell does Obama have ANYTHING to do with what happened on the US Airways flight? This idol worshipping is making me nauseated…
These silly ass “peices of art” have nearly replaced the typicaly wonderful works of Elvis on a black velvet background, available while in the auto queues heading north from TJ into San Diego.
Please stop! How long will I have to keep seeing pictures of Obama everywhere?
This 21st century is shaping up to be a cross between ‘1984’ and the film ‘Idiocracy’.
You lot are hilarious – as in laughable. Certainly, you know nothing about art – or folk art. Popularity of topic in the public eye is what it’s always been about. That’s why Elvis and Jeebus.
And your ability to judge public popularity is probably measured by how many of you voted for whatshisname? And the dimwit before him. Twice.
I saw a TV ad for a furniture store that skews to “Urban” customers especailly in the “art” they sell. They had a version of “The Last Supper” with an all black cast and Obama in the center seat.
What does D.C. stand for? D*ck Chaser? The Globe agrees.
Dumb Coon?
Just couldn’t stand not to be ugly to somebody so you zinged the governor.
Have fun. Just remember you gave everyone a look at you soul and dude it’s ugly.
How much I like that kind of bleep can best be told from the fact I haven’t checked to see how the various “artists” have brutalized any of our last presidents nor the people running for office nor their families.
I see more than enough of that kind of puke put forward by people like the poster.
Hey it is amazing how writers are unwilling to research an art style. Just because some one paint a primitive painting does not mean that work of …. falls into the folk art style of painting. Not everyone can be a true folk artists but everyone can throw paint on paper…
http://bit.ly/4kUDm
Ooh, cool! Where do I sign up? I want one of him dressed as Uncle Sam, including the gray beard! He should be pointing at the viewer (like in the recruiting poster) and saying, “Hey, YOU! What have you done for your country lately, Mofo?”
No doubt we have a superstar president.
Pres Obama is intelligent, affable , worldly, great looks and in sync with the youth of America.
We are so incredibly fortunate to have him in these rough times largely inherited by the fascist Cheney Presidency and his buffoon sidekick.