First daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump tweeted out a brief response Tuesday to a D.C. art exhibit that featured her look-alike vacuuming and encouraged the audience to throw crumbs at her.
Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up. I choose the latter. https://t.co/MFri4xKhNI
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) February 5, 2019
The exhibit, featured at CulturalDC’s Flashpoint Gallery, describes Ivanka as possessing an “almost comically wide range of feminine identities.”
“Inspired by a figure whose public persona incorporates an almost comically wide range of feminine identities – daughter, wife, mother, sister, model, working woman, blonde – Ivanka Vacuuming is simultaneously a visual celebration of a contemporary feminine icon; a portrait of our own relationship to that figure; and a questioning of our complicity in her role-playing,” the description reads.
The CulturalDC website notes that “entering the gallery space, viewers will notice a woman bearing a striking resemblance to that Ivanka, cleaning a plush pink carpet. In front of this scene is a white pedestal with a giant pile of crumbs on top.”
They add in bold: “The public is invited to throw crumbs onto the carpet, watching as Ivanka elegantly vacuums up the mess, her smile never wavering. This process repeats itself for the entire duration of the performance.”
The artist, Jennifer Rubell, partially described some of her reasoning behind the odd performance art in a statement.
“Here is what’s complicated: we enjoy throwing the crumbs for Ivanka to vacuum. That is the icky truth at the center of the work. It’s funny, it’s pleasurable, it makes us feel powerful, and we want to do it more,” Rubell noted. “We like having the power to elicit a specific and certain response. Also, we know she’ll keep vacuuming whether we do it or not, so it’s not really our fault, right?”
Ivanka's brother Eric Trump criticized the exhibit on Fox & Friends Tuesday saying his sister "has done more for women than probably anyone in Washington, D.C."
"Think about that hypocrisy," he said of the exhibit. "They label themselves the quote, unquote 'party of women,' yet they're throwing food, they're throwing garbage at a woman on a carpet holding a vacuum cleaner to mimic someone who really does care and who has fought so hard for women."