Mao and the Christmas Tree: The President’s Yuletide Jeer

It isn’t often that matters of art enter the political news cycle. The Obama administration is determined to change that. Over the holiday week, Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government drew its readers’ attention to the ornamentation on the White House Christmas tree–in particular, an ornament featuring a picture of the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong.

This season’s Christmas decorations, recycled and reappropriated by “community groups” with ornaments from previous White House installations, were the brainchild of Simon Doonan, the Pop Art gadabout tapped by the White House for the occasion. Doonan is most well known for his controversial window displays at the Barneys New York department store, which have included dioramas of Margaret Thatcher in dominatrix wear and Dan Quayle as a ventriloquist’s dummy.

The news of the White House’s holiday hijink reached around the globe. The most interesting commentary came out of the smackdown between the art critic for the Los Angeles Times Christopher Knight and Breitbart. I have had my run-ins with Knight myself. On this occasion, Knight thought he outdid the right-wing commentators by making a distinction between any old portrait of Mao and “Andy Warhol’s ‘Mao ‘”—from which the White House ball derived.

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