The Piece of Art Showing Ivanka’s Lookalike Vacuuming Crumps
In Washington D.C., an Ivanka Trump lookalike has been vacuuming a hot pink carpet in at the Flashpoint gallery for two hours each evening. As she is almost completing the task, spectators soil the carpets with crumbs making her repeat the process. The Ivanka Vacuuming, which is Jennifer Rubell’s installation, has already spiked a response from the subject.
Following its opening, Ivanka Trump’s tweet said that women could choose to knock each other down or build each other up and she chooses the latter to which Rubell replied that she would encourage Ivanka to see the piece and form her direct response instead of knocking anyone down.
Preminda Jacob, a historian of contemporary art from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, followed Rubell’s directive and went to see the piece herself. According to Jacob, the piece displays Ivanka with a plastic sheen which borders on surreal, and it is very pink. As soon as it became apparent, Rubell’s sketch was drawn from a rich tradition of performance art where she tries to compel viewers to think of the enormous numbers of women who perform invisible labour in exchange of crumbs from the great American pie.
The work of art is staged at the back of the gallery, in a space surrounded by three white walls. A white cube is at the foreground, approximately three and a half feet high and topped with a two-foot mound of Panko bread crumbs. The text invites viewers to throw bits onto the pink carpet to keep Ivanka’s lookalike busy.
Luckily, when Jacob visited, Rubell was in the gallery observing the performance. Rubell said she witnessed the live performance in Washington, D.C. at times but she mostly viewed live feeds from her home in New York City. The Ivanka doppelgänger is a model whom Rubell hired through an agency. She said that although she made adjustments to the model’s hair colour and makeup, it was easy to mimic Ivanka’s look because she is already doll-like.
Reference
https://theconversation.com/ivanka-and-her-tower-of-crumbs-111392
Art/History 