“The next artist is Mark Bradford, a Los Angeles–based artist whose work articulates much about the cultural and geographic makeup of a specific American community. Either of two large-scale paintings would be great for the White House collection: Boreas (2007), which uses the silver paper that has become a signature of Bradford’s work, or Across 110th Street (2008), which has more of a map-like feel, another signature of his work.

“He was invited to participate in the New Orleans biennial this past October, where he built an ark out of his signature signposts and installed it on a spot in the Lower Ninth Ward where a house had stood before being washed away by Hurricane Katrina. This would be a fantastic outdoor sculpture for the White House lawn, as it discusses how the American government handled (or mishandled) a major crisis in a largely African-American community.

“Julie Mehretu’s work is about the 21st-century experience — the density, fast pace, and compression of information. Mehretu creates densely layered, large-scale expressionistic paintings with opaque layers. This technique of collapsing a cacophony of visual information allows her work to convey a compression of time, space, and place.

Mehretu is a postmodern painter, offering many perspectives at once to show the nomadic nature of urban living, the preoccupation of power and globalization, the density of our urban environments, as well as the acceleration of how we move through these spaces. The painting Empirical Construction, Istanbul (2003) is major and fantastic and would be great for the White House collection.”
Roger Netzer, art collector

“My three suggestions are the artists Jim Sams, Maurice Denis, and Jack Pierson. I think the Obamas should commission a work by Sams, a wood carver from Kentucky. Don’t be fooled by the pedestrian pedestal you see in Dwarf Crested Iris; Sams’s work is uncanny. The scrupulous fidelity to detail embraces imperfection — the brown and bug-chewed laurel leaves, for example. A photo gives little idea of the obsessional power these pieces radiate in person. They are each about 10 inches high — life-size. The Obamas should commission him to do the 50 state flowers. The results will be beautiful, patriotic, and utterly strange.

“The Museum of Modern Art in New York shamefully sold L’Enfant Jesus a la belle verdure (1900), an absolutely gorgeous and major work by Maurice Denis, at Christie’s a few years ago. Denis is my favorite among the Nabis, though his pals Vuillard and Bonnard are better known. His greatest works were executed before he turned 30 — this one was done when he was 29. Christian mysticism consumed him from day one, but as the years went on his pictorial sense became as conservative as his religion. But there is nothing bourgeois about the gloriously sensuous picture. So what if he was a nice man who loved mamas and babies? An even better picture by him is Easter Morning — painted when he was only 20! — but it is already on public exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, so there would be no net gain for the public if it came to the White House.

“Don’t we need to see some citizens? Here’s one: Ben Kweller, Rockaway, photographed by American artist Jack Pierson in 2001. Pierson captures immensely moody romanticism in the everyday. Look how the stained glass harmonizes with Ben’s skin tone and clothes. Pierson’s portraits are humane and warm and a joy to live with. What’s not to like?”

Anastasia Rogers, independent curator

“Mika Tajima’s sculptures reference mismatched car parts and architecture, using precise lines and geometry. They are incredible freestanding sculptures of all sizes, each painted uniquely and with aluminum mirror on plywood. Tajima’s work represents destruction and rebuilding with strong, reliable materials, embodying the stance Barack and Michelle have taken in their respective roles.

“Michael Phelan’s work culls American iconography, exploring themes from Western culture and American consumerism. Tie-dyes and popular slogans are prevalent, referencing the choices we have made and how certain parts of our culture have become representative and sedentary. Phelan’s work would be an important addition to Barack and Michelle’s collection, as it harks back to the roots of both the culture and geography of America, celebrating the contemporary American landscape.”