Brian Boucher
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If you’re like us, everyone on your Facebook wall is fighting over what candidate they support. Friendships are ending. The world may be ending.
So let’s lighten up with a game where we decide who some well-known artists are going to vote for, based on some of their most recognizable artworks. (N.B.: To maintain democracy, voting is secret in the United States. We don’t really know whom they’ll pick once they’re in the ballot box, but we’ve got some theories.)
Christo looks at his artwork The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005. Courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
Christo
Christo (along with his longtime collaborator and late wife, Jeanne-Claude) is known for orange-hued installations worldwide. The couple created orange curtains in New York’s Central Park, in their monumental work The Gates (2005). This summer, tourists mobbed their brightly-colored floating piers on Lake Iseo, in Italy.
Just one presidential candidate has been compared to Agent Orange, a traffic cone, a ludicrous tangerine ball bag, and even dubbed “Cheeto Jesus.” And you know who that is: Donald J. Trump.
Jenny Holzer at the Brooklyn Museum Artist’s Ball, 2014. Courtesy of Owen Hoffmann/Patrick McMullan.
Jenny Holzer
Holzer has long been fascinated with government secrecy, and has created artworks that create formal elements out of the black stripes that adorn redacted government documents.
And there’s one candidate also known for redacting things, like, say, 30,000 or so emails. Yes, that’s Hillary Clinton.
So we’re thinking it’s Clinton/Holzer 2016, for sure.
Alex Katz at the 2013 IFPDA Print Fair. Courtesy of Patrick McMullan.
Alex Katz
Alex Katz is perhaps best known for portraits, but his landscapes rock us as much as anything else. One thing you really notice about them is the lush greens.
Did someone say Green Party? Our money is on Katz pulling the lever for Jill Stein.
Jeff Koons. Courtesy of YouTube.
Jeff Koons
The master of turning a mirror on pop culture, Jeff Koons says he unabashedly loves all things American. Does he want to make America great again, or does he think it’s already great? We’re not sure, but we do know that his 1994–2000 sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) set the auction record for a living artist at Christie’s New York in 2013, when that dog (pun alert!) fetched $58.4 million. And the dog was orange.
Do know who else is associated with the color orange? Take all the time you want.
Richard Prince at the
Skowhegan Awards dinner, 2015.Photo Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan.
Richard Prince
If you read the recent New Yorker profile of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, you know that the issue he seems (ahem) most fired up about is marijuana. This guy is so into pot that he even offers to hook the reporter up.
You know who else is 420 friendly? Richard Prince. He even teamed up with High Times magazine for a current show.
So. Richard Prince? We bet he’s throwing in his lot with Gary Johnson.
Ed Ruscha at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles gala, 2016.
Photo David Crotty/Patrick McMullan.
Ed Ruscha
Some of California artist Ed Ruscha’s most famous images are his photographs and paintings of gas stations, suggesting a love of fossil fuels. He was also born in Nebraska, which is a traditional red state, but with progressive traits. In 2010, President Barack Obama gifted Column with Speed Lines, a lithograph by the LA-based artist, to David Cameron.
It’s a tossup, really.
Richard Serra. Photo by Mireya Acierto/Getty Images.
Richard Serra
Remember Richard Serra’s notorious sculpture Tilted Arc? That 1981 sculpture was nothing but a giant wall that bisected New York’s Federal Plaza in 1981. And guess what? It was super-controversial, and even divisive.
You know who else likes to build walls? You’re correct: Donald J. Trump.
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