Multimedia Artist George W. Bush Hints at New Work for 9/11 Anniversary

You might think former President George W. Bush and pop chanteuse Halsey have nothing in common, but you would be wrong. Both of them dated G-Eazy. Just kidding. They have both accidentally alluded to a second 9/11 via social media.

Yesterday Bush posted a contextless photo of his fellow awful former president Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel to his Instagram story. The post drew attention when a Twitter user with the handle @swegiib posted it with the caption “?????”

It’s a very ominous photo, not helped by the fact that Bush wrote nothing to accompany it. Also not helping is the fact that the picture was taken from some high-up viewpoint, with Bush either in a tall building across the way from Trump Las Vegas or… in an aircraft.

As we all know, Bush is an artist, so maybe there’s some commentary we aren’t picking up on in his latest masterpiece. He could be commenting on the way we allowed someone who owns a gaudy Vegas hotel to become president. He could be saying, “Hey, I know that guy.” Or he could be saying that a plane should take out the building and all the people inside. An artist’s vision isn’t always presented to us on a platter.

I admire Bush for pushing boundaries in his work. His portraits of immigrants felt hokey and cheap, and his pivot to shocking viewers with an apparent callback to the biggest calamity of his presidency while also placing us within the context of today is a bold move from the budding talent. I think we can all expect to see him enter a much more daring phase of his career moving forward. Venice Biennale, watch out.