Posted on 10/09/2009 9:35:35 AM PDT by doug from upland
Sent yesterday to Malkin and Breitbart. ORIGINAL FREEPER THREAD
Yesterday, we chuckled over the indecision-themed “word art” that the Obamas chose to hang in the White House.
Today, a Free Republic poster notices another of the Obamas’ curious art choices: “Watusi (Hard Edge),” by Alma Thomas, who is described by the NYTimes as “a longtime Washington resident who is an African-American painter.”
Alma Thomas’s “Watusi” (1963) looks to be an almost exact reproduction of a 1953 piece by Henri Matisse titled “L’Escargot:”
Here they are side by side, with “Watusi” rotated and on the left.
Another blogger actually raised questions about the piece back in July: “I have been on a rant about this for three days. But I mean, really. Look up both images on Google, turn Thomas’ 90 degrees to the left (right?) and you tell me if this work should be included in the new White House Collection of American Art, not to mention how the ____ did it ever get chosen for the Hirshhorn in the first place? Can anyone say plagiarism? American art? I don’t think so!”
Brian at Snapped Shot has a very helpful and amusing animation.
Here’s how Art in America rather generously described Thomas’s piece:
A good place to begin thinking about Alma Thomas’s ravishing late work might be the moment in 1964 when, close to paralysis and bedridden, the 73-year-old artist found herself staring at the hollyhock shadows she had known her entire life and calculating how to use them in her paintings. A year earlier, she had seen the late Matisse cutouts at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Matisse’s work had prompted her to paint an acrylic-on-canvas version of his collage The Snail (1953), in which nearly all the original colors were reversed. Thomas named her painting Watusi (Hard Edge), after Chubby Checker’s dance hit “The Watusi.” As well as marrying high modernism with the popular culture of black America–then entering the American mainstream–the title she chose noted Matisse’s debt to African art.
Hmmm.
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I know, I know. Cries of “RAAAAACIST” in 3, 2, 1…
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Behold my new creation, “Twist:”
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Don't even get me started on music "sampling."
ping
From Freeper Tunehead54 ...............
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Hells Bells sex muntz ago I coudnt spill artus and NOW I ARE WUN!
They’re both crap. How about that for even-handedness and racial neutrality?
Errah similar yes, but was Matisse’s soaked in urine first??!!
My two year old did something similar in daycare last week.
Maybe I can sell it to the Obamas…
It is hard to imagine how bereft of talent and imagination you would have to be to copy that.
Michelle, your artistic skills are genius.
Plagiarism? I’m guessing she was suffering from a certain form of artistic anemia common to artists: non Monet.
Sounds as if Art in America identified the ‘commonality’ some time ago.
It is very simple, the Obamas should have known about this, vetted the provenance and publicly dismissed the piece, and artist, as a fraud.
The fact that it was in the Federal Government’s collection is no excuse. Being presented with choices presented by some Federal Agency and liking a few pieces is unacceptable. The pieces the Obamas chose is a reflection of their tastes and is enough to take them to task.
Absolutely this is fair game. Clothes, hair-dos, arms, and shoes are fair game. Why not art?
Oh my, I’ve got some art hanging in my home, too. I better get vetting.
And just how the heck does calling a “Snail” a “Watusi” do that???
I see a future expenditure in the Federal budget: an extra large dumpster to hold all this crap passing itself off as “art” when Obama gets leaves the White House.
It looks like Michelle Obama needs to hire TWO more “advisers” (totaling 24), one for fashion/art purchases, and one for her personal fashion. Money cannot buy taste, and the people in the White House are living proof.
Obama chose that painting because the artist(?) is black.
Plain and simple.
High expectations of blacks is not a trait held by the Obamas (or by liberal democrats).
If this is their taste in art, I would hate to see the White House china.
Can anyone here say “copyright infringement” in Watusi?
I believe Obama also owns a painting called “Canines Playing Canasta.”
Wealth redistribution for artists. What’s the big deal, the National Endowment for the Arts has been paying artists for CRAP for years. Don’t want to do it anymore? Raise your voice.
In this instance, “Hope and Change” has become “Rotate and Change.”
Rap artists have been using tracks from real musicians for years. Same thing.
Sad to say, but “Rap” music was started by persons of Caucasian lineage.
I just don’t understand all the negativity. The two pieces are different as night and day, though equally moving. I am touch by the intensity, the rigor of each art form and congratulate the Obamas for celebrating such immense talent.
Now, back to my pot smoking…
Was it public education that allowed white people to devolve to the level that would elect a black socialist? Or can it be blamed on political correctness run amok? Or are they one and the same?
What may also be plagiarism is an Obama painting titled, “Whistler’s MO FO.”
“Twist” looks curiously similar to one of my favorite works by Rorschach, the German Expressionist who worked exclusively with black ink. He is very popular with psychiatrists.
“I don’t see anything similar about those pieces of art at all.”
– Ward Churchill
Art czar to be appointed tomorrow.
Better send this to Charles freakazoid Johnson and have him check his fontarrific BS machine. He needs another 15 minutes in kookdumb.
I couldn’t find a picture of the china, but I found a picture of the drapes.
This situation is putting me on the spot because I have a BFA and MFA.
Used to try to read Art in America all the time.
That piece does not sound like the Art in America I remember.
Moreover, I find two pieces by Matisse with that name.
At any rate, if that is in the Obama’s “collection”, it hasn’t got a lick of African-American authenticity about it.
Why, yes they are.
I once got a blue ribbon for “Best use of color”, doing something just like this work….when I was goofing around in Kindergarten art time.
My teacher snatched it up and had it displayed in a student art show for the parents to see. When I was asked what is was supposed to mean, I just shrugged my shoulders, and responded, “I dunno.”
If I realized what cr*p passes for fine art anymore I would have changed my career plans right then and there.
greenfairie. For that, you get the gold star!
Hangfire, is that the 21st Century version of “sit on it an spin?”
Behold my new creation, “Twist:”
Brilliant MM. You’re a natural.
Im a racist, they’re a racist wouldn’t you like to be a racist too…be a racist, drink Kool Aid Today!
Hmm that didn’t work out too well in the Ryme department…hmmm thats racist too.
Michelle Obama’s second happiest hours were spent in dad’s lap watching Elmyr de Hory paint.
Art fraud for a presidential fraud… why does that surprise you… in Obama’s ghetto, they call that “sampling” and it’s no different than BHO’s commitment to wealth redistribution… just another punk ripping-off what he can get by with…
My 3-YO does the same thing about twice a day. Would love to sell it to the Zero’s – save on diaper service.
Actually, there is a difference between the two works. Matisse signed his original in the lower right corner.
It appears that Alma Thomas is as much an artist as Jayson Blair is a journalist.
Merde!
Is there anything the Obama’s have that IS original????????
Never mind.
It’s symbolism. The Obamas & Alma Thomas are all fakes.
Or as much as the looney tunes that comment on La Malkin’s site are art critics…
Cause when I think intelligent, considered opinions about art, I sure think “home-schoolin’, NEA-ridiculin’, knuckle-draggin’ wingnuts”! And this thread is all the proof anybody needs…
I think the “beeholder” just got stung…
OneMonkeysUncle,
It’s the plagiarism, stupid.
Since blacks complain all the time and call me a racist. Since illegals are filling up my neighorbood schools and sucking up my money. Since I am tired of bending over backwards… I AM NOW A RACIST! Get them the hell out of my world.
Fer cryin out loud! You’d think with all the taxpayers dollars they’re ripping from us, that they could at least buy a “Velvet Elvis” and hire an illegal to hang it right side up!
Every day I am reminded just how lost Obama is. He needs an intelligence czar to help him cope with everything other than day-to-day living (which is done by WH staff). He really needs to go back to Chicorruptago, where he would be more at home.
Hey! Maybe they could add some original Ward Churchill’s to their collection.
And who wrote “Dreams From My Father”?
Truthfully or not, Bill Ayers said he did.
“Twist” – A stunning study in the contrast of femininity – NEA
Original artist M Malkin has achieved a shocking new level in dramatic contrast, producing a more intense blackness than has ever been reached, while a startlingly bright whitness mocks it’s blacker than black counterpart evolving into a ghostly image, eerily reminiscent of Davinci but utterly fresh, bold and original.
Bidding will open at $10,000,000 for an initialed first generation xerox copy. (on bond paper)
These two taken individually are a real piece of work. Together they’re just plain embarrassing.
I feel sorry for the girls of these two half-wits, and because they are the girl’s frames of reference for their growth to adulthood they don’t stand a chance for well-balanced adulthood.
On top of the idiocy, moronics and amorality of these two, just by the mere fact of them breeding and becoming parents, they are guilty of child abuse.
In fact, because of their inability to tell the truth about anything, one wonders if the children are really their offspring or, like everything else in their lives did someone do that for them too.
I surprised they didn’t blow up the photo copy of MO’s naked ba-dunka-dunk (taken on the Oval Office Xerox) to poster size, redone in a black and white sepia finish, frame it, and add it to the collection. It could be called “The Broad Expanse of the Velt”.
If her work is an homage in the form of an acrylic-on-canvas version, then MM’s Mona is a digital homage.
She should put it on eBay and raise money for the troops from Combat Outpost Keating.
I agree with an earlier commenter here, Michelle, your article skills are genius.
This is a wonderful expose of the ridiculousness of fraud. It’s our bad luck that the proponents of such are in the White House.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Damn, didn’t even take ten freakin’ minutes to prove my point…
I would think this is the most ridiculous thing except I just heard that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was the first sitting President, indeed even the first AMERICAN to win a Nobel Prize.
So Duh One is copying a Republican in that regard, even.
But, I have had no respect for the Nobel ever since it was awarded to a communist dictator, Michial Gorbechev, and a terrorist, Yasir Arafat, and a crockumentary maker, Al Gore.
The resemblance was noted over a decade ago, and probably earlier; it appears to be deliberate.
http://books.google.com/books?id=eb5222HXmzoC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=watusi+painting+thomas+matisse&source=bl&ots=bXPMlQDzSJ&sig=JLY_Yuh-foU4dn8EaAKSdUQnGlM&hl=en&ei=c2_OSpu7G5Hk8Qa90tX4Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=watusi%20painting%20thomas%20matisse&f=false
One can make a similar, facile criticism of jazz, which reuses themes and often entire compositions repeatedly.
Is it possible to come up with any legitimate criticisms? Of 0bama? Or of anything at all?
Does this mean Matisse is a racist?
Just Paint.
Ok. The painting is simplistic and ugly. Both the original and the copy look like something my pre-schooler would call a failure because the lines aren’t straight.
Obama spends far too much money flying Air Force One for stupid personal business.
Your writing style is weak. You tend to write sentence fragments instead of complete sentences.
Are you happy now?
I wonder if Obamas prefer Kansas Fried Chicken? This also reminds me of the McDowel’s restaurant from an Eddie Murphy movie: Coming to America. At least in that movie, the writers made fun of copycats. Our “briliant leader of the world” celebrates mediocity and plagiarism. Hmmm, I wonder who actually wrote the 2 books credited to his name. I wonder who Michelle O. was parroting when she sharred her “so emotional” life stories with the Olympic staff? There isn’t an original thought in that entire family. That is probably why Obama was such a mystery man – because no one could find a single act or word in his life, that could not be pinned on someone else at a convenient moment.
hmmmm; seems a lot of our black master race tend to take shortcuts to fame, the ny times reporter, the writer who made up the racial story, the prez of the u.s. and now an artist. is this person so dumb that they think in the art world that they could get away with plagiarism?
Do you do the Watusi (dance from the 60’s)? I do not know but The Watusi by by Alma Thomas BELONGS in the Obama White House as a testament to phonies, grifters, Community Organizers, Community Outreach lawyers and scam artists everywhere. But I do understand: I have a terrible time with escargot in the garden every year.
They could try Sluggo.
So the Obamas chose a painting expressing indecision and a plagiarized work. As I said in the Indecision thread:
Art imitates life.
Yes is does JD. I wonder if they get the joke. Or maybe it’s an intentional joke by the Obama’s. About the Con they are pulling on America.
LOL–OMU. Well, as an ‘art critic’ I can tell you that piece of work wouldn’t be looked at twice if it weren’t for the artist’s back story.
That is all.
You nailed it. Artistic welfare.
Debt. Everybody owes Africa something.
I think the best comment I’ve seen about this was over at Riehl World View by commentor Ran
I love it…Obama’s totally immersed in fraud–even his taste in art is based upon fraudulent junk like this. Every passing moment of every day Obama loses credibility in every possible way that a person can lose credibility…and he’s president of the United States.
Oh, this just in on the Glenn Beck program: Glenn was just awarded “Best in Show” at the Westminster Dog Show (”But I’m not a dog…”). That, to go along with the Academy Award for Best Picture (for the picture he hasn’t made yet…).
In other news, Mr. Obama included the Bill Ayres piece entitled “Two Rows of Five Cans each of Healthy Choice Soup.”
It’s a masterpiece.
Matisse is a great hero of mine. He worked his rear off every day of his life, and became France’s greatest 20th century artist.
I attempted a copy of Matisse this year, and labeled it a copy and am keeping it in my own collection. I have an ethic that says I will not sell/pass off a copy.
However, in times past, this was not a commonly held ethic. But, it is now.
Who would ever dream of switching out the colors and turning a direct copy on its side? Limited imagination, to say the least. I wouldn’t give it the time of day, although the artist’s other works might have merit.
Typical of Obama to like the copy. He himself is a copy of Mussolini on his side, if you ask me. A fascist to the core, and yet one unschooled in even recent history. Myopic, dangerous and infantile, all at the same time.