Ivanka Trump blasts DC art exhibit for using a 16-year-old lookalike of her to vacuum up crumbs, calls the work a ‘very sexist representation of a woman’

Good Morning America

Ivanka Trump branded a performance art piece inspired by her as "very sexist" in an interview with "Good Morning America" on Friday.
"Ivanka Vacuuming" is a performance art piece at the Flashpoint Gallery in Washington, D.C. that features an Ivanka lookalike hoovering up crumbs that visitors toss onto a pink carpet.
In her "GMA" interview, Trump said what upset her most about the piece was that a 16-year-old was hired to have crumbs "thrown at her" for two hours a day.

Ivanka Trump slammed a performance art piece inspired by her as "very sexist" in an interview with "Good Morning America" on Friday.

The piece, "Ivanka Vacuuming," from nonprofit CulturalDC at the Flashpoint Gallery, features a lookalike of the first daughter vacuuming up breadcrumbs that visitors throw out onto a pink carpet.

A press release about the exhibit said it 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."

When asked about the piece, Trump said what upset her the most about it was the fact that a teen was hired to play her double.

"Well I think it’s a very sexist representation of a woman," Trump said, "but what bothered me about this image is that they hired a 16-year-old girl to stand there and have crumbs thrown at her for two hours a day for a couple months, so I have a real problem with that and that’s what infuriated me more than anything."

AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

Kristi Maiselman, CulturalDC’s executive director, told INSIDER in a statement that the safety of the model is a top priority and that no one is throwing crumbs at her, just at the floor.

"In all of our work the safety and protection of everyone from our models, to our visitors and staff is always our top priority," Maiselman said. "The response to this piece has been very respectful. Visitors are throwing crumbs onto the carpet, not at the model who is monitored by both gallery staff and security. This can be seen nightly in our livestream at cultrualdc.org."

Trump and her brothers also tweeted about the exhibit on Tuesday.

"Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up," she wrote. "I choose the latter."

Jennifer Rubell, the conceptual artist behind the piece, invited Trump to come see it for herself.

"Art can offer a truth that politics can’t. It can create a portrait of things that contradict each other," Rubbell said on Friday. "This is a great gift of art and a great defect of politics. There’s no greater clarity than the piece itself."

"Ivanka Vacuuming" will be displayed from 6 to 8 p.m. ET each day at the Flashpoint Gallery in Washington, D.C. until February 17. It can also be viewed online via livestream.

NOW WATCH: Bud Light’s ‘Dilly Dilly’ just made a comeback at the Super Bowl with a weird crossover ad with Game of Thrones — here’s what the phrase means

See Also:

Source: Business Insider