For Independent 2025, The Meeting is pleased to present Tod Lippy’s

My Fellow Americans, a single work comprising a series of small

portraits of Trump voters. Lippy’s title quotes President Nixon’s

famous introduction to his address to the “silent majority,” promoting

his pro-war policy in Vietnam in the face of a nation that had been

torn asunder.

Lippy says: “I googled the phrase ‘Why I voted for Trump’ and

over the course of several days found 50 people who had publicly

proclaimed their support, either in interviews with media outlets or

in op-eds they had written for national and regional newspapers. I

decided that I would paint portraits of each of these voters.”

Lippy mixes the conceptual with the documentary—he uses the

chance and randomness of Google searches to develop a snapshot of

the Trump constituency. His inquiry peers across the political divide:

he enters the other’s political bubble, putting a face to those in the

movement he opposes. Infusing himself into the closed circuits of

self-actualization that LinkedIn and Facebook sustain, he figures an

alternate universe that’s more than familiar.

My Fellow Americans saw Lippy pick up brush and paint for the first

time with the skillful results of a bold enthusiast. Each face beams

with the truth—albeit an unverifiable one—that portrait painting

bestows upon its subject.\

He channels Alex Katz’s flatness and attenuation of affect, giving his

subjects, despite their diverse looks, a visual if not psychic repetition.

One that echoes what cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer saw in 1920s

American popular culture: the surface display of a “mass ornament.”

Yet Lippy’s project holds ambiguity close to its heart. Is the artist—in

gouache, wax crayon, colored pencil, graphite, Sharpie, and paint

pen on board—humanizing his subjects, the political force they form,

and, ultimately, the man they placed at the country’s helm? Or is he

indicting them, calling out their misplaced sense of duty? Giving them

a relatable banality that Hannah Arendt may have called a pragmatic

amorality? — John Thomson

Tod Lippy (b. 1963, Baltimore) works across a range of disciplines,

including curation, design, music, publishing, and writing, to reckon

with the complexities of a fractured culture. He holds an MA in Art

History from Williams College and an MA in Cinema Studies from

New York University. Solo exhibitions include My Fellow Americans,

The Meeting pop-up, Los Angeles, CA (2025); Private, The Meeting,

New York, NY (2024); and Private, The Future Perfect, Los Angeles,

CA (2024). Lippy is the creator of the arts publication Esopus (2003–

2018), which has been the subject of exhibitions at the Colby College

Museum of Art in Waterville, ME (2024); the Nasher Sculpture

Center, Dallas, TX (2017); and de Appel Art Center, Amsterdam,

The Netherlands (2016). Lippy was awarded a MacDowell Colony

Fellowship in 2018. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

May 8 - 11, 2025

Henry Belden

Apr 22 - Jun 3, 2023

Trays