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Artworks
Deborah Kass
"Vote Hillary", 2016Silkscreen on Stonehenge 320 gram paper
42 x 42 in
106.7 x 106.7 cm
Unframed
+$500 to frame7565Deborah Kass announced the release of this now-iconic screenprint on her Instagram account in July of 2016, leading up to the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of...Deborah Kass announced the release of this now-iconic screenprint on her Instagram account in July of 2016, leading up to the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Scrawled beneath a picture of Trump's sneering face are the words "VOTE HILLARY," a reference to Trump's challenger, Hillary Clinton. The work appropriates a similar screenprint by Andy Warhol from 1972, which features the words "VOTE MCGOVERN" scrawled beneath the sneering face of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. Kass' image went viral, and was featured in major articles in Artnet News and several other media outlets.
Now past the end of Trump's Presidency, this piece stands as a reminder of a particular moment in culture, a distinct and unambiguous artifact of the "Trump era," including his candidacy, Presidency, and eventual fate losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. While there is an impulse for some to want to move on and dismiss that moment from one's mind, it should stand as evidence to a moment, reminder of resistance even in dark times.
The work is considered part of Kass' No Kidding series (2015—Present). One of the defining elements of this series is the incorporation of neon into the paintings. Kass' latest body of work, No Kidding deploys the aesthetic formalism of Post War abstraction, as did her feel good paintings for feel bad times. But now the mood has changed. The palette has shifted to dark colors and the surfaces of the paintings are worn and washed out. Seemingly positive lyrical phrases such as "Happy Days Are here Again' and "We'll Be Young Forever" contrast with a sense that everything is not alright. The colors and text in the works reference issues like women's health, climate change and institutional racism. Among the most potent pieces in the series use the words and colors Black and Blue alluding to, among other things, police violence against people of color.
Provenance
Artist Studio
Kavi Gupta, Chicago
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