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Duke Publishes Book By Obama's Mom
Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
Edward Norton On His Behind-The-Scenes Obama Documentary
The Window Treatment
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Jennifer Hudson Smiles… In Gap Ads

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BearDownCBears
11/25/09

In reply to Duke Publishes Book By Obama's Mom
I expect a blow-up over Chapter 10: "How to Bribe a Metal Engraver into Fabricating a Seal for a Birth Certificate"
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morninggloria
11/25/09

@BearDownCBears: I had a feeling you'd go there.
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LucilleMcGillicuddy
11/25/09

In reply to Duke Publishes Book By Obama's Mom
it is such a shame she did not live long enough to see how she changed the world. can you imagine?
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jackiebinaz
11/06/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
Meanwhile, a little background on GW and art:

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born-again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled A Charge to Keep. Bush was so taken by it, he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography.

[Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

[www.harpers.org]
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Caitfish
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
Kudos on the Nevelson, and thanx for not including Abstract Expressionist bullshit in the end (besides Rothko, but I'll give 'em a pass because he's sort of different from a lot of them).

As for the Watusi piece, it looks different enough from late Matisse where I don't give a damn. It's nothing special, but I don't see why anyone should have a stick up their ass about it. It's art. Don't take it so seriously (says the person with an Art History degree). #artssake
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allium
11/04/09

@Caitfish: Alas, having un bâton jusqu'à son cul is Mme. Malkin's raison d'être.

(can you tell I studied Latin?) #artssake
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madeofawesome
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
I wonder what it's like to hate someone so much that I have the energy to care what kind of art he hangs in his house. Especially when there's, like, a healthcare debate going on. And a whole bunch of other shiz that in my brain takes precedent over a fkin painting. #artssake
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envirodesigner
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
people need to stfu when it comes to art. As a person that majored in art history, it's just disappointing. *sigh* People love art for the sake of art, I'm not going to make fun of a person that likes one artist over the other. #artssake
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MijaMia
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
As an art historian I have learned that there is never a consensus about what makes art original. Scholars, critics, and artists spend entire careers debating the notion of legitimacy vs. imitation and yet suddenly the conservative right are experts on the idea? Modern art is full of imitation/imitators, many grappling with "highbrow" conceptual theory that is incredibly self-aware. That is, they are imitating/recreating/referencing/sampling/copying with a purpose, or intention. How profound then, that our first black president would display a work that is in a way a black artist's facsimile of a European master. The work itself serves as evidence of an artist's process, but perhaps more importantly as a symbol for many of the cultural politics blacks have had to negotiate in America.

I just don't think the critics get it. #artssake
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TurtleWexlerKickedMe
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
We all know that if it's not Thomas Kinkaid, it's not art, anyway. #artssake
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Island of Misfit Toys
11/04/09

@BB: The Franklin Mint objects to your statement. #artssake
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AuntieEm (robots from the year 2000 > zombies)
11/04/09

@Island of Misfit Toys: @BB: you bothe got hearted for this, brilliant #artssake
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colormeroutine
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
I am forever amazed by the things people chose to give a half a shit about #artssake
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morninggloria
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
If all of the art he selected had been art professor type fare, he would be another arugula eating limosene liberal who windsurfs with John Kerry. His collection would have been seen as a testament to how out of touch he is with "real" Americans whose idea of art may or may not be a life sized cardboard cutout of Jeff Gordon and a light up picture of a blonde Jesus, and a cutesy sign hand lettered with purposefully childish writing that says something like "Life Is Not The Breaths You Take, But The Moments That Take Your Breath Away!!!!!!!" I mean really. If I were the President, I'd just say fuck all y'all haters and buy a bunch of puppy posters interspersed with some original Jasper Johns and, like, concert posters. #artssake
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Leucadia
11/04/09

@morninggloria: Cutesy hand-lettered shit that is usually hand-lettered overseas by someone making starvation wages. The irony of mass-produced cute folksy crap for sale at WalMart just absolutely makes my blood boil, and meanwhile my nice older lady neighbors wonder why I don't have a cute hand-painted scarecrow/ pumpkin/ duck/ santa claus on my porch. #artssake
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GirlFailer
11/04/09

@morninggloria: Personally, I feel like a Thomas Kinkade log cabin would add a special something to the White House. #artssake
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morninggloria
11/04/09

@Leucadia: Nothing more American than willful, self interested myopia. #artssake
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
11/04/09

@morninggloria: Or that Monet forgery from Thomas Crown, that was painted over "Dogs at Cards".

And a Public Enemy poster. And maybe one of Eminem, to balance it out.

Now I'm curious as to what they had on the wall in the East Wing in GWB's White House.
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Edited by Rooo sez BISH PLZ at 11/04/09 3:17 PM Rooo sez BISH PLZ was starred

phantom lady
11/04/09

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Nascar posters. autographed. of course. #artssake
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GoldenRatioφ (aka -girl11)
11/05/09

@Leucadia: I was given one of those little, generic, hand-painted inspirational signs as an engagement present. "Live. Laugh. Love." I'm pretty sure that is like the gateway sign that every married couple MUST have before they move on to more annoying signs. I got two more as a wedding present ("Friends. Faith. Family" and "No matter what, no matter where it's always love if love is there!"). If only my Southern aunt could see my hovel of a West LA apartment that is furnished almost entirely by Ikea. I don't mind getting mass-produced crap if it's useful like a pot. But if you're going to get me something that seems heartwarming and personal, maybe it would be nicer to actually get something that doesn't sit in the home of every single person you know.

I wouldn't mind the painting in controversy, if it's been sent back... #artssake
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teenytinyhorses
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
picasso did 58 versions of a single velasquez painting. i think it's sort of what artists do...reimagine things that inspire them! #artssake
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Cam/ron
11/04/09

@teenytinyhorses: "Good artists borrow ideas, great artists steal them" - Picasso. #artssake
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teenytinyhorses
11/04/09

@Cam/ron: if picasso says it's ok, i'm fine with it! #artssake
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
11/04/09

@teenytinyhorses: It is generally what artists do. But we're Amurrikan. We don't do that French-fried art thing here. Freedom fries! #artssake
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
11/04/09

@Cam/ron: Isn't that quote also attributed in some rearranged fashion, to Mark Twain?
Or did he steal it? #artssake
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alula
11/04/09

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Haha, T.S. Eliot, too. (Now I want to see Michelle Malkin read The Wasteland. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will make her head explode.) #artssake
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
11/04/09

@alula: she'll get old, she'll get old
she will wear her trousers rolled
and her head it will explolled. #artssake
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susanstohelit
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
So...conservatives think that they are so fucking brilliant they're the first ones who noticed that Watusi is based on a Matisse painting? Somehow it managed to get past museum curators, art historians, and the Obamas - but Michelle Malkin revealed Alma Thomas for the plagiarist she is! Thank God. #artssake
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la.donna.pietra
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
Hmph. What kind of an art scandal is this? I don't see either elephant poop or a religious figure in that painting. #artssake
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msAnthrope
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
that sucks having to select artwork for reasons other than maybe it just appeals to you a lot. i hate that some people make selecting artwork this intense intellectual process. #artssake
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stacyinbean
11/04/09

In reply to Art In America: Painting Gets Pulled From White House Following Furor
They both look like I could have made them in 3rd grade with construction paper, what's the freaking problem? #artssake
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xeniaster004
11/04/09

@stacyinbean: thats the worst attitude towards art. Oh you could've made it? but you didn't, so seriously.
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slowpoke.r
11/04/09

@xeniaster004: Yep, I agree, that is the worst one.

Looks can deceive, and what seems simple in art is often extremely difficult to accomplish. Kind of like any other field, where the masters make it look so easy that the neophytes assume it is. #artssake
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