Here are snippets I posted on the New York Magazine site re: the art borrowed for display in the Obama White House.

Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge)

Comment on: Obama’s Startling White House Art

Deitch did not foist a Kehinde Wiley on the Obamas, as previously speculated on these pages. There's also no Basquiat, Carrie Mae Weems, Adrian Piper, Gary Simmons, Mark Bradford, Jacob Lawrence and countless other black American artists (including Kara Walker). Ligon, while "prickly" and "challenging", still deals with identity from a politely subversive text-based perspective.