Barack Obama’s New Portrait Takes a Blatant JAB at Trump – Do You See It?

Obama’s portrait painter known for controversial paintings of decapitated white people
February 13, 2018
https://www.conservativeinstitute.org/media-bias/media-propaganda/painter-decapitated-white-people.htm?utm_source=aimtell&utm_campaign=automated_push&utm_medium=push
Obama’s portrait painter known for controversial paintings of decapitated white people
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When Obama’s presidential portrait was revealed Monday, it was clear that he was going for something off-beat.

The former president evidently picked the right artist for an unconventional picture. Obama’s portrait artist, Kehinde Wiley, is known for controversial paintings depicting black women decapitating white women in the past.

Is this what it means to be “woke”?

Obama portraitist made violent anti-white paintings
Former president Obama and his wife, Michele unveiled their official portraits at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery Monday. Obama’s bright, garish portrait drew both praise and criticism for breaking from tradition.

Obama apparently picked Wiley because of his politically subversive style. A common theme in Wiley’s paintings is the substitution of powerful white men from history with contemporary young black men and women.

“What I was always struck by whenever I saw [Wiley’s] portraits was the degree to which they challenge our conventional views of power and privilege … recognizing the beauty and the grace and the dignity of people who are so often invisible in our lives,” Obama said.

In 2012, Wiley applied this method of substitution in two paintings inspired by the Biblical story of Judith, which recounts how Judith, a Hebrew widow, liberates the Jews after charming and decapitating an Assyrian general, Holofernes.

In Wiley’s depiction, Judith is a black woman, and the male Assyrian has been replaced by a white woman.

“It’s sort of a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing,” he explained.

A description of the image from the North Carolina Museum of Art foundation reads, “Wiley translates this image of a courageous, powerful woman into a contemporary version that resonates with fury and righteousness.”


What’s the message?
If there were ever such a thing as “hate speech” in portraiture, this would fit the bill.

Granted, modern artists have been pushing the boundaries of good taste for decades. Since the days of Duchamp and Manet’s Olympia, transgression has been the rule and not the exception.

But Wiley’s artwork is, by his own admission, consciously political. He’s not just pushing the boundaries of expression, he’s making a political statement. Just what message was he trying to send with these portraits?

Is this just an imaginative depiction of a Biblical story, or an endorsement of violence?

Of course, Wiley seems to have received nothing but praise in the past from mainstream broadsheets for his “flamboyant”, provocative artwork.

We can only imagine the reaction from the press if the races were reversed.

Barack Obama’s New Portrait Takes a Blatant JAB at Trump – Do You See It?
https://www.usapoliticstoday.org/barack-obamas-portrait-trump/
By Gary Maher - February 12, 2018029
The unveiling of portraits for former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle is raising a lot of questions. Chief among them is – What in the fresh hell are we looking at exactly?

As we reported, Mrs. Obama’s portrait was of some other woman bearing little to no resemblance to the former First Lady. In fact, it looks like a watercolor painting you might see on the middle school walls at your son or daughter’s open house.

As for the former President, there is certainly a greater resemblance to the subject, but it’s still raising some eyebrows for various reasons.

Take a look …

CSPAN

@cspan
.@BarackObama's portrait at the National Portrait Gallery

3:42 PM - Feb 12, 2018
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Okay, a couple of things stand out at first blush.

One, why is the former President seemingly sitting on a floating chair inside a bush? Perhaps it symbolizes all of the times he blamed his failed presidency on George Bush. Perhaps he’s finally trying to put Bush behind him. It’s tough to say.

Two, why does Obama have hands that a raptor would be jealous of? Is the artist taking a not-so-subtle jab at President Trump, whose hand size actually became a campaign issue in the previous election? Either way, seems like the artist is overcompensating.

Viewers on social media quickly savaged the portrait.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

Aaron Blake

@AaronBlake
President Obama's official portrait, courtesy of some guy from the Choom Gang apparently

3:36 PM - Feb 12, 2018
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Fear not, Mr. and Mrs. Obama. With all of the ridicule and embarrassment directed at these portraits, you still have friends in the compliant liberal media willing to pretend they’re top notch.

Check out this review by the New York Times, but be careful not to get too much drool from the author on your screen.

“With the unveiling here Monday at the National Portrait Gallery of the official presidential likenesses of Barack Obama and the former first lady, Michelle Obama,” the Times reports, “this city of myriad monuments gets a couple of new ones, each radiating, in its different way, gravitas (his) and glam (hers).”


The New York Times

@nytimes
Barack Obama's portrait shows him not as a self-assured, standard-issue bureaucrat, but as an alert and troubled thinker.

Michelle Obama's portrait overemphasizes an element of couturial spectacle, but also projects a rock-solid cool. http://nyti.ms/2o26j8f

4:24 PM - Feb 12, 2018
Kehinde Wiley has set Mr. Obama against greenery, with flowers that have symbolic meaning: African blue lilies for Kenya, his father’s birthplace; jasmine for Hawaii, where Mr. Obama was born; chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago, for the city where his political career began.
Portraits or Politics? Presidential Likenesses Blend Fact and Fiction
This Barack Obama Is No Mr. Nice Guy. Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of the former President contradicts the impression he often made in office of being detached.

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There is literally nobody on the planet that thinks Barack Obama has an ounce of “gravitas” in him. I mean, seriously people

CNN also jumped into the fray and tried to put a nice spin on the portraits.

The portraits you see, aren’t meant to actually look like the people being painted.

“These portraits break the mold of how we as the viewer consider the depiction of a person,” Kate Bennett, CNN’s White House reporter explained to us non-artist simpletons.

They broke the mold all right. Hopefully somebody can come along and fix it.

What do you think of the Obama portraits? Share your thoughts below!