{"id":4649,"date":"2026-08-12T19:43:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4649"},"modified":"2026-08-12T19:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:43:16","slug":"dear-god-trumps-patriotic-ai-slop-art-exhibit-goes-down-in-flames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4649","title":{"rendered":"‘Dear God’: Trump\u2019s ‘patriotic’ AI slop art exhibit goes down in flames"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If you\u2019ve ever wanted to burn gas and drive somewhere to see the same AI-generated artbarf crawling across MAGA social media sites on a wall, Slate writer Christina Cauterucci has a suggestion for you. Or maybe not.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump henchman is \u2018cuckoo for cocoa puffs\u2019 and out for revenge: Jim Acosta<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever wanted to see John Adams\u2019 facial pores? Examine the precise hairline of Alexander Hamilton\u2019s unibrow? Admire the sheen of James Madison\u2019s pillowy lips? Then you\u2019ll love a series of portraits by Brandon Ralph currently on view in Washington,\u201d said Cauterucci.<\/p>\n

As part of an exhibition titled Passport to Patriotism: 250 Years of Diplomacy<\/em>, mounted by the State Department at the Art Museum of the Americas, blown-up images are suspended on walls with the familiar faces of the Founding Fathers \u201cin granular detail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cauterucci said Ralph created the art by funneling other peoples\u2019 famous paintings through an A.I. model that mimicked his personal photographic style. According to his Instagram he calls them the \u201cfirst-ever photographic portraits\u201d of America\u2019s dads.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose one could take away something profound from the sight of George Washington\u2019s stubble as imagined by a computer program. \u2026 But Passport to Patriotism<\/em> does not encourage such searching interpretations,\u201d Cauterucci said. \u201cA declaration of uncomplicated national pride, the exhibition comes as a rebuttal of sorts to Smithsonian displays that the Trump administration has deemed insufficiently flattering to the American ego. In this context, Ralph\u2019s portraits read not as an invitation to ponder the founders\u2019 imperfections but as a symbol of Donald Trump\u2019s war on the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other works include Henri Reed\u2019s paint-spattered canvas depicting an angry eagle in flight, which Cauterucci describes as \u201cobjectively hideous, and not in a deliberate, statement-making way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome are merely amateurish, like a thickly daubed painting of a heart in turquoise and gold spangles by Fer Da Silva, a friend of the exhibition\u2019s organizers who bragged in an Instagram video that the piece\u2019s inclusion would raise its monetary value,\u201d Cauterucci said. <\/p>\n

Others are technically adept \u201cbut banal works you might find at a tourist gallery on the main drag of a seaside town,\u201d said Cauterucci. \u201cTaken together, the overarching impression is of a seasonal HomeGoods display around the Fourth of July.\u201d And these appear to be the good ones.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump lawyers file appeal alleging \u2018abuse\u2019 by judge<\/a><\/p>\n

The exhibition\u2019s title, in fact, is so out of step with its content that Cauterucci reasons it was \u201cslapped on as an obligatory justification for State Department sponsorship.\u201d It wouldn\u2019t be the first time the museum\u2019s programming has accommodated the president\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuseum leaders canceled two shows last year after deciding that their focus on international Black and queer artists would run afoul of Trump\u2019s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,\u201d said Cauterucci. \u201cNow, in service of an ideology that brooks no deviation from blind nationalism, Passport to Patriotism<\/em> advances a shallow vision of U.S. identity with all the nuance of a propaganda reel and all the sophistication of the art project your first grader brought home on Flag Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

There a visitor will find \u201cfive dozen\u201d interpretations of the U.S. flag, and some abstract nonsense that likely survived because they had a red, white and blue color palette.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will not shock you to learn that this MAGA art exhibition is the product of a cascade of underqualified nepotism hires,\u201d Cauterucci adds, with one of the organizers, Art in Embassies Director Erin Scavino, a former Apprentice <\/em>contestant and the wife of Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff. Another is Scavino\u2019s friend, who \u201cowned a pet-food store before being tapped by Scavino for a top national arts post.\u201d And both women have personal connections to several artists in the show.<\/p>\n

Not a single historian or art curator had a hand in the exhibition, said Cauterucci \u2014 and it shows. And \u201cnot just in the breathtakingly simplistic art on view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the broadest sense, Passport to Patriotism<\/em> is an embarrassing travesty of a public art exhibition. But on Trump\u2019s terms, it\u2019s exactly as it should be,\u201d Cauterucci concludes.<\/p>\n

Read more GOP pollster details \u2018biggest tell\u2019 MAGA \u2018knows they\u2019re losing\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever wanted to burn gas and drive somewhere to see the same AI-generated artbarf crawling across MAGA social media sites on a wall, Slate writer Christina Cauterucci has a suggestion for you. 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