The First Lady (Diplomat's Room, Rihanna, 20 Minutes)

The First Lady (Diplomat’s Room, Rihanna, 20 Minutes) presents a portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama taken by photographer Collier Schorr. As the title indicates, the image was first captured in a private session within the White House residence during President Obama’s tenure; it then appeared for widespread public consumption in an editorial spread in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. The magazine tear sheet that Schorr scanned and digitally printed to create this enlarged inkjet print is revealed in the image’s final iteration.

The layered processes emphasized in this work speak to how identity and image are often manipulated in American media culture. The work’s title seeks to reveal truths: it details the location of the sitting, the duration of the shoot, and even the music that was playing. The far right edge of this large photograph exposes its original, pristine state. Yet, further in from the right edge, magazine text crediting the designers of Obama’s earrings and clothing is emblazoned over her image. Between these two visual moments and the tension in which they coexist is the delineating crease of the tear sheet, which not only announces the shift in process but also seems to divide the “real” Obama from the one we see circulated on newsstands, social media, and the Internet.