It was inevitable that Jivanka — that nightmarish, mangled moniker for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump — would try to use art institutions as a backdrop for their new lives in Washington, DC. Art institutions have become frames for audiences, who use exhibitions and gift shop wares to pimp out their own brands in the world. And so, here we have Ivanka Trump sitting like landed gentry in Yayoi Kusama’s “Obliteration Room” at the Hirshhorn Museum.

Some thoughts:

  1. She continues to have that stare-into-space look often favored by fashion models and despots.
  2. Someone should explain to her that the whole premise of the artwork — that color will eventually take over the whiteness of the room — is not exactly in sync with her dad’s policies promoting white supremacy.
  3. Whiteness — as a color and identity — is always central to her look, and here we see her positioning herself in the room in a manner that emphasizes a sense of purity (her pants vs. the rest of the space). The contagion of the room hardly touches her.
  4. This is staged to look casual, even though it’s on her own Instagram account.
  5. For someone who promotes “women who work,” this looks more like a woman who lunches with her PR team.
  6. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Kusama work shows up in a US embassy at some point.
  7. If only the room were true to its name and could make the Trump nightmare disappear.

In other news, someone is transforming used Ivanka Trump–brand clothes into pink jumpsuits (with gold accents) for the millennial set.

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Hrag Vartanian

Hrag Vartanian is editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. You can follow him at @hragv.

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