Over at the L.A. Times today, art critic Christopher Knight went after Big Government for reporting on the White House Christmas tree ornaments and the man, Simon Doonan, tapped to oversee the decorations for the White House. Knight’s objection to Big Government’s coverage of the administration’s decision to inject left-wing politics into the White House Christmas tree begins and ends with the fact that Andy Warhol was the artist behind the particular image of the murderous Communist dictator Mao Zedong featured on one of the ornaments we brought to your attention. Knight’s article is excerpted below followed by Breitbart’s take downs and Knight’s response. Jump in the comments here or head over to the L.A. Times article and join the fray.
“A Warhol Christmas at the White House”
By Christopher Knight, L.A. Times
When it comes to art, the right-wing anti-Obama crowd hasn’t had a very good year. Repeated efforts to gin up outrage in a manufactured culture war have either fallen flat or proved downright embarrassing. (You can see some of them here, here and here.)
The latest fiasco is the Great Christmas Ornament Scandal.
On Tuesday, Andrew Breitbart’sBig Government blog got its knickers in a twist over one of the Obama White House’s myriad Christmas trees. (Big Government is a sibling to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blog, which cranked up a paranoid fantasy about the National Endowment for the Arts a few months back.) The blaring “EXCLUSIVE” led with a blurry photo of a decoupage Christmas ornament adorned with the face of Chinese Communist dictator, Mao Zedong.
“Of course, Mao has his place in the White House,” Big Government wailed about the GCOS, taking the Obama-as-socialist meme out for a yuletide spin.
Except, it wasn’t exactly Mao. It was Andy Warhol’s “Mao.”
The image is one of a very large series of silkscreen paintings and prints the late Pop artist made of Mao. Warhol’s parody transformed the leader of the world’s most populous nation into a vapid superstar — the most famous of the famous. The portrait photo from Mao’s Little Red Book is tarted up with lipstick, eye-shadow and other Marilyn Monroe-style flourishes.
Read the full article here.
Breitbart/Knight repartee:
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