Hi Melania,
I saw you were highlighting the nude modeling career that everyone forgot about in order to sell a book. Presumably you were hoping that a few pervs out there who had forgotten will buy the book hoping to see some nudes. Maybe that’ll work out for you and you won’t be reduced to asking the RNC to buy your book in bulk like Jr had to. We’ll see.
In any case, I wanted to just give you some pointers on art so you don’t further embarrass yourself and our country if, god forbid, you end up traveling the world and meeting global leaders as 1st lady again. Put bluntly, what you did wasn’t art. It was exploitation. Your photo shoots, like almost all fashion photography these days, added nothing interesting to the discussion. You did them to sell merch, just like how you’re talking about them now to sell merch. You did the fashion photography, as most fashion photography goes, to show T&A to lure in those who either want to look like you or bed someone like you. Real art depicting the female form, at least since 1960 or so, has something to say about the subjugation of women in our society. Real art would have actually made a point of talking about how disturbing your photos actually are and how they make our society dumber and more coarse.
Oh, but you’ll say your shots are about female empowerment, right? A lot of people who don’t understand art try to get away with that one these days. It’s feminism, right? Nah. Not even close. And of course, you can’t talk about anything like that given the conservative world that you have to inhabit — not in any deep meaningful way. And so, there you have it. Without the freedom to make that argument strongly and persuasively, you’re left with nothing more than being a tool for exploitation. Sad.
So, why do I bring all of this up? These distinctions are important because most world leaders are well educated enough to know the difference between postmodern art and what you were doing. And they would laugh at you if you tried to make the argument you’re making at a dinner or some such event. The last thing we need is for you to be giving the world more reasons to laugh at Donald Trump and the country that elected him.
So, just really quick. The history of art in our contemporary era is largely the history of postmodern ideas challenging the patriarchy and its objectification, suppression, and mistreatment of women and minorities. It’s also about opening up galleries to people from lesser known countries and highlighting the problems of colonialism and post-colonialism. There’s not a lot of through lines that connect the VERY wide variety of global art now that’s been largely freed of its Euro-centric pre-occupations. But those ideas above are the few that connect almost all of it. You’ll see lots of nudes and some of them will be what you’d call sexy, but they aren’t intended to be viewed the way your fashion photography is intended to be viewed… or more importantly the way your photography was intended to be used, as a cheap gimmick to sell merch. If anything, real contemporary art depicting the female form is intended to be uncomfortable and to cause self-reflection about the problem of the male gaze in our modern world. To see what I’m talking about, the most famous real artist you would look to would probably be Cindy Sherman, who became famous for turning the camera on herself (unheard of at the time) to talk about that very thing. In fact, like much fashion photography, your work is actually now the antithesis of contemporary art because it merely reinforces all of the problematic ideas that real artists have been fighting against since at least the 1960’s and 70’s.
Put shortly, you’re late to the party. Every real artist exists within the context of their time and almost all of them have fought to give voice to the most progressive ideas of their era, especially Michelangelo in his own way — whose work seems quite conventional now by our standards if you don’t know how to see the subtle differences that made it revolutionary and controversial in his time. Maybe if you had been born in 1890, then you could have been a part of the Modern art movement of the 20’s and 30’s that many agree was revolutionary but still male dominated and rooted in the still classical, patriarchal ideas that naturally come with that… even when those men were trying to do their best to challenge it. But that wasn’t to be and you really should be embarrassed for not knowing more about the context within which you were working. I shudder to think of all the educated folks snickering about your recent comments on art — it really is quite embarrassing that you might need to go take some notes on it from George W. Bush of all people. Honestly, his stuff is much much closer to what is now called art than your nude photos.
Thanks bye.
