Update, 2/5/19: Ivanka Trump responded to “Ivanka Vacuuming,” tweeting that “Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up. I choose the latter.”

Original: While Washingtonians might run into Ivanka Trump at a D.C. eatery or [solidcore] class, the White House senior advisor has yet to face a confrontation in the District in the same way some of her administration colleagues have.

In Jennifer Rubell’s performance art piece “Ivanka Vacuuming,” Rubell gives gallery-goers the necessary ingredients for a dust-up: an Ivanka Trump look-alike in inches-high heels vacuums a pink carpet covered in crumbs. Mere feet away, a huge mound of crumbs sits atop a pedestal, and people are encouraged to take a fistfull and throw them at the ersatz First Daughter. The exhibition text describes the piece as a “visual celebration of a contemporary feminine icon; a portrait of our own relationship to that figure; and a questioning of our complicity in her role-playing.”

On Friday evening at Flashpoint Gallery, opening night for the piece’s debut, most of the dozens of attendees opted not to throw the crumbs (I did see one person eat some of them, though). Instead, most milled around, chatting with one another and watching the faux-Ivanka slowly, silently vacuum as the rouge-colored carpet picked up the geometric pattern of the domestic tool’s path.

Was Rubell disappointed more people weren’t throwing crumbs? She says she doesn’t have a particular expectation for how people will respond to the situation she has created. “I don’t assume anything,” she says. “I find it all valid, all interesting. I’m constantly surprised.”

Nothing about the set-up is incidental, from the distance between the pedestal and the carpet to the costume, which is modeled after her outfit at the G20 summit in Hamburg, when Trump briefly stepped in for her father. “It was a confluence of her role as a powerful stand-in for her father and her role as a classic feminine, almost girly human that really blew my mind,” Rubell says. In that moment, “it was very clear to me she was a character of fascination and a piece would come out of that.”

She considers the work that resulted to be a “contemporary equivalent of a history painting … certainly more true than documentary or non-fiction. It’s a portrait of her, but also our relationship to her.” “Ivanka Vacuuming” is part of CulturalDC’s 20th anniversary season.

Rubell found the 16-year-old model who plays Trump through a casting agency. “The idea that a 16 year old can convincingly depict a [37] year old says a lot about the self presentation of that [37] year old.”

Attendee Peter Sharp says he showed up out of curiosity, particularly over the idea in the press release that the Ivanka lookalike’s smile would be “never wavering.” On Friday, though, she had more of a blank expression.”That’s what I was hoping to see: a defeatist look,” says Sharp. He adds that he’s conflicted by the framing of the exhibit—”What of my mess is Ivanka actually cleaning?”—and describes his emotions in watching the scene as a “back and forth of feeling empathy and not so much.”

Gallery-goer Caitlin Teal Price was intrigued to see how the model would react to the breadcrumbs. For the exhibit, hundreds of pounds of panko were ordered and transported 200 pounds at a time. When Price threw the breadcrumbs, “it wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it was going to be.” She clarifies that it’s not a critique of the art, but “maybe it was the texture, it was too light. I wanted it to thud.”

“Ivanka Vacuuming” is on display through Feb. 17 at Flashpoint Gallery (916 G St NW) from 6-8 p.m. Admission is free, and there is also a livestream.