Ivanka Trump has subtly slammed an art installation that features a model who resembles her vacuuming up crumbs tossed by onlookers.
“Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up,” the 37-year-old first daughter and White House adviser said Tuesday on Twitter. “I choose the latter.”
Trump quote-tweeted a write-up by The Hill on the exhibit. Made by artist Jennifer Rubell, “Ivanka Vacuuming” is on display at the Flashpoint Gallery in Washington, D.C., until Feb. 17 and features the look-alike in a pink dress and stilettos vacuuming breadcrumbs that onlookers can toss from a nearby pile.
“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,” reads the website for the exhibit.
“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,” says the site, which adds that the act of throwing crumbs is “open to multiple, often contradictory interpretations that are as critical of the interpreter as they are of the subject.”
Ivanka Trump’s brother Eric Trump commented more directly on the artwork. On “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday, he said she “has done more for women than probably anyone in Washington, D.C.”
“These leftists called up a modeling agency, saying, ’You know what, I want to get a nice woman to come stand on a carpet, with a vacuum of all things, so that our people can throw food and crumbs to mimic a powerful woman who has done more for women than probably anyone in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
“Think about that hypocrisy. 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,” Eric Trump added.