⌨️ There’s a secret anti-tech message hidden on this campaign website
It certainly feels like the Hot Girl Summer of 2019 is coming to an end. The Trump campaignfinallyput out KAG hats and “Old Town Road”finallyended its run at No. 1 after a record 19 weeks. Billie Eilish was the artist who replaced Lil Nas X at the top spot with her hit “Bad Guy” and she became the first musician born in the ‘00s to go No. 1 on the Hot 100. We’ve entered a new era in pop. Christian Girl Autumn, here we come.
In this week’s issue we’ll look at the artists behind a painting of Bill Clinton in a dress and the crystal-covered portrait of Tiffany Trump. Also, Jon McNaughton dropped his latest piece. Let me know what you think about it at hunter@yellozine.com.
Yours,
🧢 The Trump campaign finally put out their KAG hat
Two months after President Trump formally kicked off his reelection campaign, his supporters can now get “Keep America Great” hats for $25. Even so, Trump is still doing that thing where he polls his crowds on what his 2020 slogan should be. At his rally in Manchester, N.H., on Thursday, Trump said “there's a possibility we'll use both” KAG and MAGA. I’m tracking how the campaign is promoting the hat, so keep an eye on your inbox later this week for my report.
🎨 Speaking of hats…
There are two MAGA hat-themed works of art you can view now in downtown Washington. “True Facts MAGA hats” by Lewis Schlitt at the Center for Contemporary Political Art (left) is a collection of red hats hanging from the ceiling that read “This Is My Safe Space,” “I Am Afraid,” and “I Am Racist.”
And at the Touchstone Gallery you can see “Make America Great Again” by Connor Czora (right), which is the result of a performance piece last April when Czora dropped a porcelain MAGA hat on the ground outside the White House.
💵 Shepard Fairey will be at an upcoming Buttigieg fundraiser
Fairey is listed on the invitation for a fundraiser for South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg next Tuesday in Hollywood. Billed as a “conversation” with Buttigieg, it’s a low-dollar fundraiser, with tickets starting at $25. In June, Yello was the first to report that Fairey, the artist behind the “Hope” portrait of former President Barack Obama and the “We the People” series, planned to meet with the Buttigieg camp.
⌨️ There’s a secret anti-tech message hidden on this campaign website
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) campaign website includes a hidden message that reads “Break Up Big Tech” written in ASCII code in the HTML. Spotted by Doug Thomas, an assistant professor of design at BYU, it asks viewers to join the Warren for President tech team, which is currently hiring a director of engineering, and for two engineer positions.
Warren rolled out a proposal to break up major tech companies in March. Her plan would designate companies with revenue of more than $25 billion a year as “public utilities” and appoint regulators to break up companies (ie. break Instagram off from Facebook and Whole Foods from Amazon).
Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) site also features an ASCII code image, of her campaign logo.
👗 That painting of Bill Clinton in a dress was made by an art student
In case you missed it, Jeffrey Epstein reportedly kept a painting in his New York City home of former President Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels. Titled “Parsing Bill,” the artist behind the painting said she had no idea it ended up with Epstein.
“As with most of my paintings, I had completely lost track of this piece when it was sold,” Petrina Ryan-Kleid told Artnet News. It was one of two presidential pieces she painted in 2012 as a grad student at the New York Academy of Art. The other was “War Games,” showing former President George W. Bush playing with paper airplanes and two toppled Jenga towers.
“It was just a silly school artwork that was supposed to show, pictorially, the messages we are bombarded with in regards to these presidents,” Ryan-Kleid said. She said her ideas “were fresh from the Daily Show or from Australian cable TV,” where she’s from.
💎 This Tiffany Trump portrait is made from 150,000 crystals
On Sunday, Tiffany Trump posted a photo on Instagram posing in front of a portrait of her made of 150,000 crystals. The piece, by artist Mr. Bling, captures the first daughter’s “Light,” mom Marla Maples gushed. Amazing.
“I made it because she’s a very special person in the world and I wanted to make her bright,” Mr. Bling said in a statement to Yello. He said it took “over a month” to create and that after Tiffany “got interested in my art,” they worked together on the design and idea for the piece.
Mr. Bling has made similar crystal portraits of celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, the Kardashians, and Rihanna.
🖼️ Jon McNaughton’s latest painting is called “The Masterpiece”
I tweeted it out this morning and my mentions are full of people either photoshopping it (this mash-up didn’t take long) or making comments about the placement of Trump’s thumb… Anyways, McNaughton hasn’t posted a run down of the hidden symbolism in the piece, but he did write on his website that it’s meant to show Trump isn’t finished with his work.
“His greatest achievements are yet to be revealed,” McNaughton wrote. “How will history remember the presidency of Donald J. Trump? I believe it will be considered a ‘Masterpiece.’”
💅 The Bernie Sanders-Cardi B collab is out
In the video, released by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) campaign, Cardi B talks about topics including her love of FDR and Medicare for All. And while discussing police brutality, Cardi explained how her attitudes toward the police have changed over time.
“I don’t want people thinking that we’re trying to attack the police because, let me tell you something, there was this one time that I started to feel like, ‘I hate the police, they’re pigs,’ but there’s a lot of cops that go in their jobs and they want to protect their people,” she said.
It appears the Sanders campaign could have more conversations with musicians planned. Shortly after posting the Cardi B video, Sanders’ Instagram account posted a photo of him and rapper Killer Mike with the caption “Coming soon…”
🏈 Not everyone’s happy with the NFL’s partnership with Roc Nation
The NFL announced a multiyear partnership last week with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation “to enhance the NFL's live game experiences and to amplify the league's social justice efforts.” The partnership will include advising on the artists who perform at the Super Bowl, so maybe we’ll get a Rihanna halftime show after all?
Some people were happy with the announcement, including Cardi B, who told TMZ she thought Jay-Z could make a change. But others weren’t too pleased. Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills criticized Jay-Z for some of his answers during a press Q&A with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, including Jay-Z saying we’ve moved “past kneeling” (“It didn’t seem very informed,” Stills said). And former ESPN host Jemele Hill wrote in The Atlantic that Jay-Z “isn’t getting enough out of the deal to justify the sacrifice of some of his credibility. This alliance plays right into the NFL’s hands.”
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