AGITPROP AIN'T ART:

Art in the Age of Obama: A new era may be dawning in which artists, strongly supported by the president, will transcend starry-eyed campaign pictures and develop new forms of enduring art. (Sharon L. Butler, February 6, 2009, American Prospect)

Like much of America, the art world has fallen for Barack Obama with unguarded sincerity. From Shepard Fairey's widely reproduced poster to Robert Indiana's HOPE sculpture based on his well-known LOVE statue from the 1960s, artworks created to raise cash for the campaign manifest a partisan earnestness rarely seen since the graphics of the Russian Revolution of 1917. In one popular print, Ron English depicts Obama's face morphed with an image of Abraham Lincoln.

Visual art, explicitly or implicitly, broadly reflects the politics of its generation.