Anti-Trump in living color, not to mention feces and pig noses
MCCLATCHY / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
A wall in San Francisco was painted on April 8 to show dissatisfaction with Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall at the U.S. border.
MCCLATCHY / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Street art of Donald Trump, left, in Washington, D.C., on June 3, reflects on the election. Street art pokes fun at the 2016 election, right, by imagining presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the frightening twins in the 1980 thriller, The Shining.
WASHINGTON » Street artists have found new inspiration: the 2016 presidential election and its leading man, Donald Trump.
Though the 2008 presidential campaign was notable for artist Shepard Fairey’s iconic “Hope” poster featuring a wistful-looking Barack Obama, 2016 may be distinguished by its anti-Trump takes.
Hillary Clinton has taken a few knocks and Bernie Sanders makes appearances. But it’s Trump who truly inspires: From the East Coast to the West and even overseas, the presumptive Republican nominee has been lampooned as a pile of excrement, a Hitler wannabe and a kissing cousin of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“Street art can be highly critical,” said James Daichendt, an art critic and historian who studies the genre as the dean of arts and humanities at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. “And with Trump being such a divisive figure, it’s really reached a fever pitch.”
Artists tend to be more left leaning, Daichendt said, and those who favor street art — or visual public art, which can include graffiti, murals, posters and stickers — have taken offense at much of what Trump says.
“It’s their way of making a statement,” Daichendt said, noting that street art is public and accessible. It’s also inexpensive, allowing its rapid replication and, the artists hope, boosting the power of the message.
New York artist Hanksy created a mural that depicts Trump as a lump of feces topped with a swirl of yellow hair. It’s been replicated thousands of times, including on buttons.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But he has shown in the past that he’s no fan of feces-related art.
In 1999, when he was pondering a Reform Party presidential run, he blasted a portrait of the Madonna on display at the Brooklyn Museum that included elephant dung, as well as a piece at a Detroit show of Jesus wearing a condom.
“As president, I would ensure that the National Endowment (for) the Arts stops funding of this sort,” Trump said in a statement at the time to the New York Daily News, even though the artworks didn’t receive NEA funding. “It’s not art. It’s absolutely gross, degenerate stuff. It shouldn’t be funded by government.”
It’s not just feces today.
Los Angeles street artist Robbie Conal and his “volunteer guerrilla postering army” have pasted the town with Conal’s depictions of Trump and the words “Bully Culprit” and “Can’t Even,” the latter a slang expression for something that is incomprehensible.
“My personal, self-declared mandate is democracy — that’s what I’m concerned about in America — and Trump is probably the most egregious threat,” Conal said. “He functions below reason, on a wave of hate and fear and ignorance and prejudice.”
He said his friends talked about Trump with worry and he told them to counter with whatever they were good at: “My weapon is humor,” he said.
Conal, who now says he thinks he was wrong for lumping Al Gore with George W. Bush in a poster, noted that Clinton gets criticized by a “subculture that thinks all politicians are corrupt.”
Washington, D.C., cartoonist Mike Flugennock has put up posters featuring “President Trump” with a porcine nose. But the work, which reads “Whose fault is it, really?” is also a dig at Clinton.
“The last polls I looked at in the If The Election Were Held Today Department had Sanders beating The Donald in the general fairly easily,” Flugennock wrote on his blog. “So, while Hillary may be able to lie, cheat, steal and backstab her way to the nomination, she’ll likely be toasted in November.”
Sanders mostly gets positive art. This time around, Fairey designed a T-shirt for Sanders’ campaign.
The Trump effect is global: A mural depicting Trump and Putin kissing, along with the words “make everything great again,” adorns a wall at a Lithuanian barbecue joint, Keule Ruke.
The London-based artist Pegasus painted a depiction of Trump as Adolf Hitler on a wall in England in February, telling newspapers that Trump “will become another tyrant in history.”
And Hanksy has posted in Canada.
Trump’s candidacy has spurred art beyond the streets: Artists Mary Mihelic and David Gleeson bought a former Trump campaign bus — complete with the Trump banner — off Craigslist last fall and turned it into an anti-Trump art project on wheels.
“I was offended by the things he was saying and automatically I responded with art,” said Mihelic, whose projects include “Desecration,” embroidering Trump’s remarks on American flags.
——
(William Douglas contributed to this report.)
——
©2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau
23 responses to “Anti-Trump in living color, not to mention feces and pig noses”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kypl1MYuKDY
Thanks, I needed a lift.
The FBI said this week it is investigating the case but analysts say it’s obvious why ISIS chose to target the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
The area is home to America’s largest Somali refugee community and has been a hotbed of Islamic terrorist recruitment dating back to at least 2007. Since then more than 34 young Somalis have left Minnesota to join the ranks of foreign terror groups, including the Islamic State in Syria and al-Shabab in Somalia. Others have been convicted of sending material support to overseas terrorist organizations.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/somali-refugee-influx-continues-unabated/#YhD0I3PPAsq64J25.99
Does it ever get exhausting to be afraid of everything?
Have you always been a coward, or is it just a Trump-related syndrome?
Who let you out? Trump 2016-2024.
sarge22 – Does lespark ask you to answer for him? Weird.
Yes, Mattress Center is selling a lot of plastic slipcovers for their high-end products these days.
klastri asks: Does it ever get exhausting to be afraid of everything?
You more than most should know.
uh oh, Liberal name-calling by klastri. Next round you will be branded as a rac!st.
Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders. Personality disorders are conditions in which people have traits that cause them to feel and behave in socially distressing ways, limiting their ability to function in relationships and other areas of their life, such as work or school.
If you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may feel a sense of entitlement — and when you don’t receive special treatment, you may become impatient or angry. You may insist on having “the best” of everything — for instance, the best car, athletic club or medical care.
At the same time, you have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make yourself appear superior. Or you may feel depressed and moody because you fall short of perfection.
NPD
A disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance.
Rare
Fewer than 200,000 US cases per year
Can’t be cured, but treatment may help
Requires a medical diagnosis
Lab tests or imaging not required
Chronic: can last for years or be lifelong
Consult a doctor for medical advice
Sources: Mayo Clinic and others. Learn more
lespark – You can write that all day long. I really couldn’t care less. Your opinions mean nothing.
Those gays always looking for someone to suck.
Please delete.
Do you make these comments from prison?
Pls give my regards to Big Bubba!
Reported.
It’s come to my attention that all new Federal Employee hires within the DOD Security system are required to pass a polygraph test to be eligible for hire. This rule should apply to all politicians running for political office.
Obscene scenes depicting anyone’s stance or beliefs, regardless the “Artists ” aren’t works of art! It’s simply rudeness and offensive graffiti masquerading as fine artworks!
And so typical of the Quislings who hate Don Trump for wanting to “make America great again.”
““make America great again.”” So… Donald Trump believes that America is NOT great? Well now, that’s a fine thing to say. He doesn’t say “make America greater” or “make America better”, NO, he thinks America is, what? That’s a fine thing to say Mr. Trump, that we’re something less than great. Thanks for the vote of confidence, thanks for the pessimism, thanks for the cynicism. Well no thank you Mr. Trump. I believe that American IS great and that we’re destined to become greater, that we’ll continue to meet our challenges, both internal and external, and improve our country and society.
Trump reminds me of some evil mastermind from any comedy spy movie. Trump actually makes “Dr. Evil” look like a good guy.
Mastermind? Got it!
Just trying to help.