Politics
Massive Nude Donald Trump Sculpture Removed From Union Square Park
It's hideous, but you won't be able to look away.
Sarah Cascone
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The emperor has no clothes—or, at least, a life-size clay statue of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump didn’t, as copies of the truly obscene artwork cropped up around the country on August 18. A version erected in Union Square Park attracted crowds of hundreds of gawking New Yorkers before it was removed by city workers, reports DNA Info.
The work is a truly unflattering rendition of the billionaire, with a bloated stomach, wrinkled skin, and blue veins—not to mention the micropenis and lack of testicles. A plaque on the base read “THE EMPEROR HAS NO BALLS.” In New York, it was installed by men dressed as construction workers around 9:40 a.m., according to Hyperallergic.
“That is a frightening thought,” Bill de Blasio jokingly told reporters of the statue, according to DNAinfo. “When he’s wearing clothes I don’t like him.”
Another city representative was even more cheeky.
“NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small,” assistant commissioner for communications Sam Biederman said in a statement.
Workers remove an illegally-erected statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park in New York City on August 18, 2016. Courtesy of Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
The stunt, which also hit public spaces in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Seattle, is the work of street art collective Indecline, reports the Washington Post. Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the project has been in the works for four months.
Las Vegas-based artist Joshua “Ginger” Monroe, who creates scary sculptures for haunted houses, fabricated the works. Each piece weighs 80 pounds, and was installed with industrial strength epoxy, gluing them to the ground. (In New York, the statue had to be broken at the ankles for workers to remove it.)
“When the guys approached me, it was all because of my monster-making abilities,” Ginger told the Post. “Trump is just yet another monster, so it was absolutely in my wheelhouse to be able to create these monstrosities.”
A bystanders looks at an illegally-erected statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in San Francisco on August 18, 2016. Courtesy of Justin Sulliva/Getty Images.
There has been a great deal of unauthorized Trump art in the run up to the presidential election, including a custom-carved tombstone bearing the Apprentice star’s name that was plopped down in Central Park by artist and Satellite art fair director Brian Whiteley.
Meanwhile, in Staten Island, a rare pro-Trump lawn sculpture actually fell victim to arson—but the artist quickly rebuilt it, even bigger than before.
In an official statement about their guerrilla work, Indecline wrote that “these fleeting installations represent this fleeting nightmare and in the fall, it is our wish to look back and laugh at Donald Trump’s failed and delusional quest to obtain the presidency.”
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