Content area
Full Text
In 2009, two works by African American artists selected for display in the White House produced controversy among critics of the president. Our analysis explores how media discussion involving a Charles Alston bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and an abstract painting by Alma Thomas unearthed cultural tensions involving the practice of imitation, the value of presence, and the role of Black art and artists. Such tensions shaped the debate about the art works chosen by the Obamas and raised the question of how to define and place a Black president in the first year of his first term.
While presidents historically have used a variety of visual forms to communicate their beliefs, attitudes, values, and policies, one mode of visual rhetoric that has yet to be examined substantively by rhetorical scholars of the presidency is that of fine art. This is surprising because there is ample evidence that contemporary presidents use White House art as a mode of rhetoric (Finnegan 2014). Art functions as one of the screens upon which presidents communicate ideas about themselves and what they value. In this article, we demonstrate the value of attention to presidents' relationships to art by exploring two instances in 2009 when art by twentieth-century African American artists selected for public display in the Obama White House produced controversy. In the first case we examine, a 1970 bronze bust by Charles Alston of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was falsely argued to have "replaced" one of Winston Churchill in Obama's Oval Office, angering those who claimed that Obama had "thrown Churchill out" and therefore potentially damaged the nation's "special relationship" with Britain. In the second case, a 1963 abstract painting by Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), was attacked by rightwing bloggers as "plagiarism," and Thomas's art branded as inferior, because of the work's visual resemblance to a piece by Henri Matisse. Both controversies emerged during the first year of Obama's presidency as the new president sought to establish his authority, and American citizens eagerly sought to learn more about the political and aesthetic style of the newest occupants of the White House.
The controversies could easily be dismissed as media frenzies whipped up by partisans looking for any reason to ridicule the new president....