The work, which will be offered for sale to an institution after it completion next month, fits broadly into one stream of Pruitt’s unconventional approach art production. The series is less similar to Warhol’s approach of repetition than an idea of accumulation – the idea that a work practice, like crochet, engaged day after day, week after week, can turn into something.
“Each day’s edition doesn’t seem like much but before you know it something crazy exists,” Pruitt, 52, elaborates. The application of practice more clearly echoes On Kawara, the Japanese artist who painted the day’s date in Helvetica typeface in white on a black background. That accumulation, Pruitt says, “becomes a real container for the viewer to fill with their thoughts, feelings experience”.
With 2,994 separate components, the series still delivers surprises. The amount of imagery with Obama and Hillary Clinton is something that could hardly have been anticipated even a year earlier. More powerful, though, is the thread of the love story between the president and the first lady.
“America is always in flux and a slideshow of imagery courses through our minds, each person different,” Pruitt says. “I love the way Obama, his wife and two children changed that in such a positive way. The picture of America is better now, and that’s a big part of what this project is about and why I started it in the first place.”
But it’s impossible to discuss Obama’s presidency without acknowledging the negative forces that gathered to oppose it. For Pruitt, as others, that is encapsulated in the rise of hate groups and incorrect information that pools on the web. “We thought there was going to be some equalization, that everyone would permitted to speak. Right now that looks like a downside. But who knows, maybe it’s just something we have to adjust to.”
Pruitt is not anyone to look to for a political critique; a reasoned discussion of Obama’s record in office is not what one would necessarily come or want to come here for. Pruitt recently joined around 200 artists, curators, writers and art workers gathered outside the home of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in New York with a message calling on Ivanka to acknowledge her “commitment to protecting the rights of all Americans, especially women and children”.
The turnout included fellow downtown contemp-art luminaries Marilyn Minter, Ryan McNamara, Nate Lowman, Cecily Brown and Jonathan Horowitz. But is hard to know if the “Dear Ivanka” protest registered with the soon-to-be first daughter, who’s known to many as a peripheral collector.
“When a figure like Donald Trump, who has no experience in government, everyone surrounding him will be trying to arm-wrestle power and interject their political stance into the administration. So we’re hoping she’ll emerge as a moderating influence,” Pruitt says.
The end of the Obama project signals a series of changes, Pruitt considers. The Obama romance as it once existed will end and his successor demands new attention to a new reality, in the world and in the studio.
“I’ll feel happy we had these eight years knowing someone thoroughly capable was at the helm of the ship,” he says. “I could skip straight to arts and entertainment; now I know I have to read the front page.” On the other hand, Pruitt says, he’s prone to superstition and the turn of the calendar, and in this instance administration, presents its own opportunity.
“I use the completion of a project to wipe the slate clean and to think about who I want to be next. It’s a good feeling, both in the face of the political uncertainty we’re facing as a country, and personally to know that I can emerge with a fresh project.”
