Sly Stallone’s Rocky future for the arts

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

Since Donald Trump won the US election last month, there has been much speculation as to the president elect’s appointments, not least when self-styled renaissance man Kanye West visited Trump Tower earlier this week. On seeing footage of the latter day Michelangelo cosying up to the Donald, wags and conspiracy theorists alike wondered whether he might be in line for a top government job.

But while this theory has yet to bear fruit, Rakewell can point you to an even more extraordinary rumour, this time courtesy of the Mail Online. According to an astonishing article published by the paper last night, Trump has approached Rambo star Sylvester Stallone to take a senior arts role in his administration, one that the Mail believes is ‘likely’ to be chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts.

‘Mr Trump feels this sort of A-list appointment is precisely the shot in the arm that the industry needs’, a source told the paper. Make of that what you will. But what Grands Projets would the 70-year-old actor-cum-painter-cum-human growth hormone smuggler envisage for the art of the United States?

According to a piece last year in the Telegraph, Stallone favours a conceptual approach to art. ‘If I put a frame around a tree, the tree is going to grow through the frame. Well, I think that a painting, the more you look at it, [the more it] takes on different impressions and interpretations’, he said. ‘I don’t think you can hold in anything that’s artistic. You can’t freeze it in time. The [incomplete] frame is symbolic of just letting it grow.’ Contain him if you can…

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