It started with a bronze replica of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk on the National Mall in Washington, DC – topped with a basketball-sized poop. Now, anti-Trump statues are popping up in more US cities.
The latest appeared in Philadelphia‘s Maja Park on Wednesday morning, where someone positioned a roughly 2.5m statue of Donald Trump directly behind a sculpture of a nude woman.
A plaque below – titled “In honour of a lifetime of sexual assault” – quotes the infamous Access Hollywood tape leaked in 2016, when Trump could be heard discussing sexually assaulting women.
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“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” the plaque reads. “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
That sculpture didn’t last long. Philadelphia city crews removed it by the afternoon after they were notified of its appearance because the artists did not have a permit, according to Laura Griffith, deputy director of the association for public art.
A seemingly identical Trump statue popped up in downtown Portland, Oregon, last weekend. That one was quickly beheaded and vandalised, with a Portland city council candidate and Trump supporter filming video of himself chiselling away at the plaque. The destroyed statue vanished Monday morning.
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CNN received a call on Thursday morning from a man who claims he’s spearheading this political art project. The man, insisting he remain anonymous to keep the focus on the art, tells CNN he’s working with a small group. “It’s not huge. Just a few people,” he said. And their message is all about “resistance fatigue”.
“The most shocking things about Trump, as a president and as a candidate, as a person, are so ingrained in our memory, are so distant that they aren’t shocking anymore,” the anonymous man told CNN. “We put these up because we want to remind people that these are important things, and they should inform a decision-making process.”
On Monday, a bronze statue of a tiki torch appeared in DC’s Freedom Plaza, just a couple of blocks from the White House.
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The statue, called “The Donald J Trump Enduring Flame,” appears to mock the former president’s defence of the marchers who attended a white nationalist rally in 2017 that left a woman dead.
“This monument pays tribute to President Donald Trump and the ‘very fine people’ he boldly stood to defend when they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia,” a plaque below it reads. “While many have called them white supremacists and neo-Nazis, President Trump’s voice rang out above the rest to remind all that they were ‘treated absolutely unfairly’. This monument stands as an everlasting reminder of that bold proclamation.”
A vandal demolished the tiki torch statue on Wednesday, and its remnants were hauled away by the team responsible for the art.
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The United States Park Police arrested a man on Wednesday for destruction of property and possession of cocaine, according to a public information officer with USPP.
While the artist – or artists – behind the statues have been a mystery for days, a largely redacted permit approved by the National Park Service shows Civic Crafted LLC and Julia Jimenez-Pyzik requested and received permission to display the statues in Washington, DC.
The anonymous artist says Jimenez-Pyzik only helped the group apply for permits – and she’s now being hounded with inquiries as more statues mysteriously appear.
The only statue still standing is the original – the replica of Pelosi’s desk – though it’s also been hit by vandals. In recent days, someone ripped Pelosi’s nameplate off the piece, though it’s since been replaced.
The man would not say whether more statues could pop up before Election Day. “There are still a few days before the election,” he said. “So it’s possible.”
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