"Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, and White House advisorJames Blair. The portraits included close-ups that heightened every pore and fine line (and lip injection site), and shots that rendered these political figures comically tiny, swallowed up by their backdrops."
"Anderson's photo of the vice president, for instance, essentially transforms his actual visage into one of the bloated JD Vance memes; his face balloons across the entire composition. These photos - contrary to Anderson's own protestations - are not comparable to Anderson's other celebrity photo shots, such as that of Rosalía. Rather than the hazy, dreamy glow and airbrush-smooth skin of the Spanish singer, blood vessels burst across the bridge of his nose; an unidentified white fleck dots his lip."
Close-up portraits of Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, and White House advisor James Blair magnify pores, lines, and imperfections. Framing choices and tight crops sometimes balloon features or reduce subjects to tiny figures lost in their backdrops. The images contrast with idealized celebrity portraiture by exposing veins, blemishes, and signs of cosmetic work. The portraits present subjects as anxious, ill at ease, and overmatched in their roles, visually underscoring perceived incompetence and the human cost of their political aims.
Read at Hyperallergic
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