After the Bush Library reportedly backed out of a portrait they had commissioned from British artist Jonathan Yeo, the 36-year-old artist went forward with one anyway, a collage created from fragments of 100 porn magazines.
This Sun story has a small version of the portrait which you are invited to enlarge. Artist Yeo has even more graphic details of the portrait on his website.
The work was unveiled yesterday at London’s Lazarides Gallery in Soho.
This story is library related why?
LISNEWS. A site about libraries, librarians, information theory, and George Bush? Oh yea, all librarians hate George Bush so it is a story for LISNEWS.
Re:This story is library related why?
The story was about a portrait commissioned for the G.W. Bush Presidential Library. Does that answer your question?
Re:This story is library related why?
No actually the story is about a guy who said he was given a commission to paint a portrait of President Bush for his library. There is no confirmation that he was indeed given such a commission yet the Sun dutifully reports it as if it were fact. A good journalist would check facts rather than rely on the assertions of one silly man looking for the limelight.
I find it very hard to believe that the library committee has commissioned a portrait. The architect was just chosen last week, the site selection is still not confirmed for SMU (Baylor I believe is the less likely site – albeit still in the running.) Why would they commission a portrait at this stage?
I call shenanigans. I did a Factiva search for Bush Library Portrait and of all of the articles I found there were 3 that were original (others simply reprinted the Sun’s article or some portion of it) The Hindustan Times may have written its own story as it is slightly different but it offers no other information than provided by the Sun.
The Evening Standard’s Louise Jury wrote that the artist was contacted by Bush aides before “[T]he war (in Iraq) started.” The article goes on to say that the portrait will be sold at auction and a limited edition of 100 prints at £1200 is available now.
None of the 98 articles that were returned using the aforementioned search had any confirmation that there was any such commission, just comments from the artist that he was commissioned.
If I wanted to get my name in the news for some silly collage so I could collect a few bucks I might make up a story like that. However being the famous artist that he is having been commissioned to paint such notables as… well, such as…., um he does a nice Minnie Driver, but I don’t know that he was commissioned for that, he might just have to get his name out to a wider audience.
So some artist no one has ever heard of, an artist with no other presidential, prime ministerial, dog catcher-erial works was commissioned by the aides of a foreign head of state, days after his assuming office, to create a portrait to hang in a library for which a location was unknown, yet to be designed, yet to be built, yet to be more than an idea in the back of the staffs’ minds. Pardon me if I don’t buy that story.
I’d be very wary of sticky photos from skin mags this oddball has manipulated. Can biohazardous waste be art?
Re:This story is library related why?
Wah, wah, wah. No one here likes Bush. I’ll write all about my pity party and whine, whine, whine.