David Cameron Makes Gift of Graffiti Art to Obama
Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by Leon Kennedy in Politics
To mark David Cameron’s first visit to Washington as Prime Minister of the U.K., he presented a piece of graffiti art by Ben Eine to President Obama. The piece is entitled “Twenty First Century City”.
Ben Eine, who started out by “tagging” his name on trains and buildings around London and has put these early works under the heading of “vandalism” on his website, is apparently one of David Cameron’s wife’s favorite artists. On his website, Eine wrote that is was a “weird day” since “David Cameron has given one of my paintings to President Obama in an art swap.” In return for the graffiti President Obama gave Cameron a piece by pop artist Ed Ruscha called “Column with Speed Lines” which was apparently chosen because of its predominance of red, white, and blue; matching both the U.S. and U.K. flags.
In the past, President Obama has been criticized for other gifts to the U.K. Prime Minister; he made a gift to Gordon Brown of a set of 25 DVDs of classic American cinema, which many saw as being quite tasteless. In Obama’s defence, Gordon Brown gave him a pen holder made out of the timbers of a Victorian anti-slavery ship.
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