CHANNELS

HOT TAKES ON #OBAMAPORTRAITS

 

SpecialTeams3: zomg did u see how they made Michelle white?

Bestieslog: Hated it 

 

SWMjersey: i hate these paintings

GWMparamus: she’s like, grey… I mean when tf was she ever that?

@queer4ula: ikr, the woman is caramel, why they doing her muted? #notwhite

It’s so different from the same ol’ same ol’ WYPIPPO usual old - dry - shit in the portrait Gallery

@bootybyjon: where’s like, Obama’s feet supposed to be on? looks like they floating…

@debbiefliesattheend: It’s like a nod to Kenya, and like, to the flowers of Hawaii, don’t you get it?

@bootybyjon Duh, but like, what his feet on?

 

@Crystalbluepurse: I just love them. It’s so different from the same ol’ same ol’ WYPIPPO usual old – dry – shit in the portrait Gallery. Bravo to the African-American artists man/and/woman who created these beautiful pieces for posterity!

@Crystalbluepurse: But, yeah, totally, they’re just not good enough.

 

blaqtipfreshhornz: I just love how it’s not a Portrait you’d see of an insurance salesman, or of some academic club peeps from the 1940s. I agree that she should have been shown as having more ‘heart on her sleeve’ like she really is, but they have to be somehow in lineage with portraits of old, otherwise they’d look out of place. I think they struck a really perfect balance showing how the obamas are extraordinary yet connected to our planet in a way that maybe past generations weren’t, but how they’re still regal and totally in the right place. #NotOutofPlace

@Chickenjimstinq: Can just imagine what the trumps portraits are going to be; confused n naked on golden toilets with faux Italian putis all round.

@notyermamasbeans: What Jezebel said. I mean they made her nostrils look whyte. They made her whole platform look glossy and New York, when she’s the gardening first lady, the children’s first lady, she’s all about #allthegoodcolors, she’s all about getting her hands dirty.

@chickenguy75: no, you’re all missing the point, it’s like the artist is trying to show that healing, inter-generational healing bc her portrait is almost like it could be a tintype or a daguerreotype or some kind of black-and-white photograph that is exalting, and pedestal-lyzing the #greatblackmother, the #greatblackwoman, throughout history, and almost (in a very wiley way) inserting that into the narrative, where it always should have been, but where it was so sadly missing. It’s like trying to breach the gap, trying to mend history in a very tangible way and book-ending that with what the first lady said about future generations seeing that portrait and knowing that the future belongs to them too. #afroascendency

 

@neoabstractz: My daughters love how the dress looks like a quilt though, y’all saw that, right?

@Crystalbluepurse: Yeah, but it still looks like shit.

LINDA RAVENSWOOD

 

Linda Ravenswood is a poet and performance artist from Los Angeles. She is the editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Press, and the co-founder of The Melrose Poetry Bureau. She was shortlisted for poet laureate of Los Angeles in 2017.