Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a video of people at the Smithsonian assembling a portrait of Lincoln and Obama using cupcakes iced in a range of colors. This is basically an Impressionist or pointillist image, where each cupcake acts as a pixel creating the overall picture.
Back around the time of the election, I had sent the same friend a link to this earlier Obama portrait done with multiple cupcakes. When I saw the earlier portrait, I was impressed with how clever it was, and I especially liked the nonliteral color palette. In a visual context that began with Shepherd Fairey's Hope poster, it felt genuine and appealing to me.
The new cupcake image from the Smithsonian, however, disturbs me. Because the picture is more realistically rendered both in terms of detail and color scheme, and because of the flag background and (of course) the juxtaposition of Obama with Lincoln, it strikes me as propagandistic: more akin to something you'd see in a museum in North Korea (with the faces of the Beloved Leader and the Dear Leader, of course) than at the Smithsonian.
If it was only Lincoln's face, I wouldn't think much of it, since his place in American hagiography is long settled, and besides, it's his 200th birthday. But to put the face of a sitting president into something like this at the Smithsonian feels antidemocratic to me. And also just plain kitschy.
As anyone who has read my comments on the 2008 election knows, I am an Obama fan... but please, get a grip, people!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Obama-Lincoln Cupcakes -- No Thanks
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3 comments:
In N Korea there is less likelihood it would be an uncoerced artistic expression, though it would certainly be possible. I think the juxtaposition was an innocent expression of the artist's enthusiasm as she said many times during the webcast she has a string affection for both. And I don't think the Smithsonian told her what to compose or how to compose it. So rather than propaganda I think this is an expression of personal enthusiasm and self-expression in cake and fond ant. It's sort of a neat culmination of the level of admiration people feel, perhaps heightened on the rebound from Bush and by the Hope for a turnaround on oh so many things. Innocent fun that is also expressive of what is "in the air". I think it will be footnoted in someone polysci dissertation 50 years from now as indicative of the mood of the era rather than a sign if the rising tied of totalitarianism. Compare it to the sculpture of G. Washington posed and dressed like Zeus at American History, or a poster of Jesus, MLK, Malcolm X and Tupac. No knows how Tupac will be judged in time (perhaps not on par with the others) but thw poster certainly expresses how the artist and those displaying it feel.
Sorry for typos. Not an idiot, just touch screen phone typing. On second thought, perhaps that makes mw an idiot
Marc,
I didn't mean to imply the image was *intended* the way I am reading it, and you may be right that history will interpret it as a symbol of the changed mood in the country.
I definitely felt like a big party pooper when I wrote it, because I can well imagine the good motivations behind it, but I was trying to play that game where you look at it from the "other side" and see how it feels... and it felt over the top to me. (Imagining a juxtaposition of Lincoln and George W. Bush at any point in his presidency would have felt wrong to me, for instance.)
A quick check of the chatter online about the great cupcake debate, however, has not turned up any posts by disgruntled conservatives, so perhaps I am wrong about that.
P.S. I know exactly what you mean about typing on your phone.
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