The Obama White House's Plagiaristic, Silly Art

**UPDATE 11/5** Obama drops painting, throws Alma Thomas under the bus.

Want to know the Obama Administration’s idea of what constitutes art? There’s no better place to look than the newly-reconstituted White House art collection. So what’s there? How about this gem:

Yes, it is boring and banal. It does look like your three-year-old’s recent construction paper cut-out from pre-school – the one she made with the rounded scissors. It’s Watusi (Hard Edge), by black painter Alma Thomas.

Now here’s Henri Matisse’s The Snail (1953).

Notice any similarities? How about now:

That’s right. It’s a direct copy of the Matisse picture rotated 90 degrees and the colors inverted. What magnificent art.

Sort of reminiscent of the Shepherd Fairey plagiaristic “art” poster for Obama, ripped off directly from an AP photo:

But let’s not assume that all Obama’s art is this bad. Let’s look at it. How about this masterpiece by Ed Ruscha, appropriately entitled “I Think I’ll…”:

Isn’t that magnificent? It certainly sums up Obama’s thinking process, which is based on considering all the options, then eating a cup of applesauce and taking a nap while waiting for mommy (read: Valerie Jarrett) to make a decision.

Or how about another Alma Thomas piece, “Sky Light,” which could more appropriately be titled “inverted ant races on your broken television set”:

Then there’s “Berkeley, No. 52,” by Richard Diebenkorn (1955), which aptly sums up how the world must have looked to Obama while attending a liberal college and doing cocaine:

And, in case we forgot that the Obama’s are black, the text of “Black Like Me” on a piece of canvas (Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me No. 2”):

It’s as though the Obamas decided to do a poll as to what Americans would least like to post in their living rooms, then adopted all the top choices, with special credit to black artists based on their race. No doubt, Malia and Sasha will have an entire wing of the White House dedicated to their Play-Doh sculptures. And the New York Times will praise their artistic flair.

In essence, the Obamas are elitists who think that the inscrutable is deep, and that the incompetent is profound. Sadly, President Obama’s presidency is the same as his art: something that outsiders assume has substance, even in the absence of substance.

[Ed update: first two images are now in the correct order.]