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?
Karin Davie’s new sense of selfContributed by Sharon Butler/ At Chart, Karin Davie, in her first NYC show since 2007, has moved with elegant decisiveness from pop-inflected stripes, slapdash and dripping, to wide, sine-wave brushstrokes ...
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: September 2021Welcome to the Two Coats of Paint painting-centric guide to gallery exhibitions in New York City. There's a lot to see this month. We're in the thick of hurricane ...
Nathaniel Robinson’s train of thoughtContributed by Sharon Butler / When Nathaniel Robinson takes the train from Brewster, New York, down to the city, he snaps pictures along the way. Hastily cropped and blurry in ...
Caroline Kent: A set of symbolsContributed by Jonathan Goodman / Caroline Kent, a painter based in Chicago, is having her first show at Casey Kaplan. She makes schematic abstract paintings, which have aspects of doubled ...
Selected paintings from SPRING/BREAK NYC 2021Contributed by Fay Sanders and Bob Szantyr / This year much of the work at Spring/Break is engaged with our tenuous grasp on truth, along with themes of Catholic ...
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, ...
Did I do that? Thirty Years of Adjunct TeachingThis excerpt is from a book Peter Dudek is writing about his years in academia, teaching art. Many of the conversations and stories came about in class, during faculty meetings ...
The new theatrical space of Amy LincolnContributed by Jason Andrew / Amy Lincoln’s soaring trajectory has locked in the natural world, the phenomena within it, and the epic world of myth. Ten new paintings now on ...
Fiction: The Real, the Fake, and the UglyContributed by Laurie Fendrich / What a mess. And today was doomsday. Eliza Netsua couldn’t get back to sleep, so she dragged herself out of bed at five a.m. Her ...
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?