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Transcription: [00:18:42]
The photograph of John McCain was taken in the summer of 2006 and actually interestingly enough while while Shuller while Shullers image of Barack was published in GQ, his image of John McCain was published in Mens Vogue. And I find that also really interesting um I don't know exactly what it says about the way in which our culture absorbs politics and fashion and celebrity these days but I think it's really interesting that it's not Newsweek and Time magazine. Interestingly enough um, just as a variant of the image of Barack Obama appeared in GQ um, so too a variant image of McCain was published in the pages of um of Mens Vogue and unfortunately I was not able to bring a copy of that article with me, but I'll tell you that um McCain did not appear by himself in that article. Instead he appeared with um Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John Warner of Virginia. And so while the gist of 2004 article in GQ was to really say Barack Obama is a guy to watch the message um for the GQ ar.. for the Mens Vogue ah issue was a little bit different the the message was McCain is a team builder. And so I there was a subtlety um to the message that the photographs themselves put across. Which again I think is interesting and to my mind um given the fact that the photographers in this exhibition do both editorial assignments and fine art work. I think it does raise the interesting question and um I think this is a question that you brought up, why does certain pictures tell us certain things? And how does the context in which those images appear whether it's a fine art museum, whether it's GQ, whether it's Newsweek, how did those subtle ques cause us to interpret the meaning of an image? Um my take on these images um is that I find them not just interesting as political statements but as artistic statements.
[00:20:47]
And some of you um I'm sure have read about the phenomenon of Miami basel, which is a giant art fair that [[background voice]] Well it just wrapped up, it actually just wrapped up but you're right it happens in December. And it is really probably certainly one of if not the largest gathering of artists, um, curators, critics, um, dealers, anybody who's interested in contemporary art. And the reason is that dealers are basically hawking their goods, but they're hawking their, the best of their stuff. And once again I was struck that this image of Barack Obama was on view in a very prominent place, it was stopping people in their tracks. But actually even more interestingly to me this was not the only image of Barack Obama. Portraits of him were everywhere. And when people asked me what I took away from the fair that is the thing that made the biggest impression on me, is that there is something about, and this such a wonderful question, is it about, does it have to do with his face? Does it have to do with the symmetry of his facial structure? Does it have to do with these wonderful ears? [[laughter]] I mean really what is it that makes him so appealing or are we actually, is this actually a suggestion that the art of portraiture is somehow intimately tied to our sense of people who are in fact important to record for historical purposes? And so it's something that I'm, I'm really intrigued by and I have a feeling, although I don't know, I have a feeling that Barack Obama is going to inspire an extraordinary outpouring of portraiture and I'll, it'll be fun to watch. Uh I think there does seem to be a sense of excitement and, and hopefulness attached to it. 'Kay I see three questions I'm gonna start in the back and then middle and then come to you.