I hope these portraits eventually go on display in the National Portrait Gallery. Props to Grandoldpartygirl for posting this gem. (H/T Ashely Feinberg)
Contributed by Sharon Butler / This weekend, as hundreds of thousands of mad pink-hatters gathered around the world to protest the underhanded, misogynistic, and essentially anti-citizen agenda of the Koch-fueled, Putin-assisted Republicans, a very small segment of humanity who supports the chaotic mafia-style GOP government gathered at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the completion of Trump’s first, and hopefully last, full year as president. Even though the government had shutdown earlier in the day due to Trump and the GOP’s inability to get a budget deal inked, the lavish party, in damning let-them-eat-cake fashion, proceeded as planned at the Trump Organization’s private seaside club. During the event – dubbed “A Red, White & Blue Celebration for We The People”- a social media embargo was imposed. Nevertheless, I uncovered a few snaps on Instagram that seem to tell the story.
The program for the event. Instead of “We the People” I think they probably meant “People Like Us.”Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted this snap from Washington, suggesting that Trump and the White House staff were working during the government shutdown. But why does DJT have his hat and coat on given that he works in the same building ? Where is he going? Why is everyone (except the guy to the left of the door) laughing? Why is there text in the upper left corner of the image? Something is very fishy about this picture.Here is another image from the Trump-is-still-at-work photo shoot. Are they trying a little too hard to make us think he is still in the White House…?In case you thought no one in the entertainment industry supported Trump, here are Ray Bouderau and Usman Shaikh, two self-described entertainment guys. Bouderau is a Rockaway-born actor and producer and Shaikh is a Hollywood lawyer.Usman Shaikh posted a bunch of pictures. Here he is snapping a selfie with old-school NYC party photographer Patrick McMullan.As was widely reported in the mainstream media, Vacayinbae was disappointed that she had to scoop caviar with plastic spoons. I’m not convinced this image wasn’t fake news.She also complained that the crackers were low-budget. Here’s a response from a pissed-off Instagrammer: “You know what you paid ($100,000) for 3 hours of what you call horrible travesty I have to work 3 1/2 years to earn! Do you honestly think the honest working public cares you had to eat your caviar on a plastic spoon! What you paid for that, would help pay off my medical bills and get my car back on the road so I can get to work and back and not worry, and all you’re worried about is freaking plastic spoons! Boo hoo… if you want to throw that kind of money away why don’t you give it to someone who can really use it…instead of Trumps pocket!”Outside the Mar-a-Lago gates, women, dressed in costumes to look like the breeders in The HandMaid’s Tale, protested the Republican’s retrograde policies and attitudes about women.Naturally, GOP red and flonde (fake blonde) were the colors of choice. Reality TV-star wannabe Tina Hillstrom posted this snap of actor, Vegas lounge singer, conservative speaker Robert Davi (center) with her husband, Brad Hillstrom, and son, Brad Jr. The women aren’t identified. Note that Trump was featured on the big screen at right – not unlike Big Brother in George Orwell’s totalitarian classic, 1984. According to a report in The Guardian, they played a video message in which he tried to blame Democrats for the #TrumpShutdown.Another flonde party-goer, Ildiko Varga, posted a snap taken poolside. You may remember that Varga was the Atkins diet widow’s current husband’s former mistress. in 2011 she claimed that boyfriend Alexis Mersentes, whom Veronica Atkins wed in 2007, distributed racy private photos of her without consent. More about the tawdry affair (and lawsuit) here. Varga is (was?) involved in a family business called Varga Art Crystal and once had a gallery in Palm Beach. Info from the website: “Art aficionados applaud the superb craftsmanship and distinguished artistry found inherent in every piece of Varga Art Crystal. From the Varga design studios and forty person glassworks in Budapest, Hungary, famous team Ildiko and Sandor Varga – a third generation glassmaster – create crystal artwork that currently graces palaces, embassies, museums and celebrity homes around the globe.”Dr. Gina Gentry Loudon, a self-described “TV & Radio Host psych•biz•politics on FOX News & biz bestselling author,” posted a picture of a man’s shoe, suggesting it might be someone important. Perhaps it was Donald? If it were anyone else, wouldn’t she have posted a picture of his face?Well, yes. That goes without saying, but thanks for the warning. Sorry Floridians, with Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, don’t look for a clean-up any time soon.
Thanks for the update. I decided to skip the party. We live in ridiculous times. I hope we survive them. Do you really think the orange disaster skipped out of the White House to visit his Florida bordello?
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: January 2022Contributed by Sharon Butler / If January feels dreary, cheer up. Take a look at this long, interesting list of exhibtions that are opening in NYC.
Robert Janitz: Reverie over realityContributed by Sharon Butler / “Library of a Dream,” Robert Janitz’s elegantly installed exhibition, on view at Canada through January 21, is a knockout. Janitz spent years in intense meditation ...
Michael Krebber: The poetry in painting?Contributed by Sharon Butler / Like Michael Krebber, I love beginnings and find meaning in irresoluteness. Lately, though, in my own work and that of other painters, I have come ...
Art and Film: The low spark of High ArtContributed by Jonathan Stevenson / It’s a rare movie that finds the sweet spot between storyline cohesiveness and minimal exposition as well as great tone. Lisa Cholodenko’s plangent late-nineties gem ...
Wayne Thiebaud and starting overContributed by Laurie Fendrich / The California painter Wayne Thiebaud died on Christmas Day. He was renowned, first and foremost, for his paintings of candies, cakes, and pies, which he ...
Art and TV: Professor T, an extraordinary burst of mindContributed by Laurie Fendrich / Boy did the otherwise on-the-mark Guardian television critic Lucy Mangan get it wrong. In her 2017 review of the Flemish detective series Professor T, ...
Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Artist of EverythingContributed by Laurie Fendrich / Singling out individual works for praise in an exhibition of the size and range of MoMA’s “Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction” is almost beside the point ...
Jobi Bicos: Figuration inside and outContributed by Jacob Patrick Brooks / People love to categorize stuff, however silly it sometimes seems. Despite the best efforts of post-modernist artists to remove separations among media, they have ...
Douglas Degges: The aesthetic curiosities of childhoodContributed by Cody Tumblin / I sat down with Douglas Degges to talk about "Remembering Accardo Tackle," his recent solo show at St. Ambrose University’s Morrissey Gallery in Iowa ...
Body Language at The Painting CenterContributed by Carol Diamond / Now on display at The Painting Center, the group exhibition titled “The Body in Question,” a phrase cheekily resonant of a coroner’s report, explores the ...
Love all the ways you find to describe the obscene Rumph gala. Could it inspire some of us to paint scenes from Hell?
Thanks for the update. I decided to skip the party. We live in ridiculous times. I hope we survive them. Do you really think the orange disaster skipped out of the White House to visit his Florida bordello?