Tag: Trump

Posted on

The Second Coming is on ICE

“The role of public art is to raise awareness.” – Reverend Karen Ristine

“Anti-ICE Nativities Take a Stand Against Trump’s Cruelty,” by Emma Cieslik, Hyperallergic, December 9, 2025.

Despite pushback from right-wing leaders, nativity scenes with a humanitarian message are spreading across the country.

This past Friday, December 5, the Archdiocese of Boston asked St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, to remove its nativity scene. The crèche features the shepherds and the Wise Men, but no Holy Family — no Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. In their place is a sign that reads: “ICE WAS HERE.”

A text below includes the number for the LUCE defense hotline, run by the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, which monitors and confirms Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Read the whole article here.

Related posts:

  1. Joey Skaggs interviewed by Mark Borkowski about creative dissent on BBC Radio 4
  2. Announcing NYC’s 39th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade
  3. And From a Tiny Acorn…
  4. The Art of Protest, a New Film by Indecline
Posted on

WALK RIGHT! Walks the Line

We need more militarization, more rules, less 1st Amendment protection and definitely more fear in our city streets. We need to bring back WALK RIGHT!

Back in 1984, when mercenary vigilantes like the Guardian Angels were “reclaiming” NYC subways, Joey Skaggs launched WALK RIGHT! an ad hoc group of vigilante sidewalk etiquette enforcers who patrolled the streets to make New York a better place to live and walk.

Here’s a short tease from Joey Skaggs: WALK RIGHT! oral history film.

WALK RIGHT published 66 rules for walking, including:
*Pedestrians must choose one lane and stay in it.
*No changing directions except at designated areas.
*No stopping unless in the shopping lane.
*No eating, gesticulating, or umbrellas held lower than 5’10”.

CNN and local news covered it as serious public policy. But it was satire then—and it is satire now.

NOTE: Social media influencers have recently “invented” ways to tame our unruly pedestrians, like, Matt Bass with “Bad Walkers” and Cameron Roh who is rating walkers in New York City.

They are to be forgiven because they weren’t born when WALK RIGHT! ruled the New York City streets. And they can’t be expected to do any research that might deter them from promoting a great idea to gain sponsorship $$ or eyeballs for their products.

Related posts:

  1. Joey Skaggs Oral History May and June Festival Screenings
  2. Join Us for the NYC 38th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade (2023)
  3. Catch the First Four Joey Skaggs Oral Histories at the (Virtual) New Jersey Film Festival Friday
  4. Meet the Man Who Invented the Roach Hormone Miracle Cure!
Posted on

Statues That Should Be Torn Down

“There shall be no golden idols…”

Golden ‘Statues’ Memorializing Donald Trump’s Most Divisive Moments Have Popped Up Around Washington, DC, Courtesy of an Ad Guru, Sarah Cascone, ArtNet News, July 21, 2020

Bryan Buckley hopes to remind voters of just how poorly Trump has handled the challenges of 2020.

Bryan Buckley, Now Go Back to School. Photo courtesy of the Trump Statue Initiative.

Big, shiny, gold statues of Donald Trump sound like they would be right up the president’s alley—but a new art project, titled the “Trump Statue Initiative,” uses the figures to instead memorialize his worst moments of 2020.

Street performers painted head-to-toe in metallic gold paint posed as still as stone atop massive plinths that hailed Trump as the “destroyer of civil rights and liberties.” The trio of “statues” appeared over the weekend in sites across Washington, DC.

Filmmaker Bryan Buckley decided to stage the project in part because of the way public statues have made headlines all summer, with activists outraging Trump with their efforts to remove memorials to Confederate leaders and other problematic historical figures. In response, the president has not only beefed up the law against vandalizing statues, but also issued an executive order to create a “National Garden of American Heroes.”

Bryan Buckley, The Bunker. Photo courtesy of the Trump Statue Initiative.

“I noticed that Trump was obsessed with statues,” Buckley told AdAge. “I felt like the best thing we could do was to create these very honest statues of the legacy he’s living right now, that let the world see exactly who he is.” Read the whole article here.

Related posts:

  1. And From a Tiny Acorn…
  2. September Film Festival Screenings of “Joey Skaggs: Metamorphosis, Cockroach Miracle Cure”
  3. Catch the First Four Joey Skaggs Oral Histories at the (Virtual) New Jersey Film Festival Friday
  4. Get Your Personalized Trump Presidential Pardons!
Posted on

Trump-the-Vampire Unveiled in Slovenia

“Some critics denounced it online as a ‘waste of wood’…” h/t Boris & Nancy

Slovenia Has Another Trump Statue. This One Has Vampire Teeth.
by Palko Karasz
The New York Times
Aug. 31, 2019

The figure under construction in Sela pri Kamniku, Slovenia. A local architect said he designed it “because people have forgotten what the Statue of Liberty stands for.”CreditCreditJure Makovec/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LONDON — It is not often that President Trump follows in the footsteps of his wife, Melania Trump, but he has received a wooden statue in his likeness in her homeland, Slovenia, after the same, dubious honor was bestowed on her in July.

Like the effigy of Mrs. Trump carved with a chain saw and unveiled on a riverside near her hometown this summer, this new work — a slatted structure nearly 26 feet tall — has its share of detractors. Continue reading “Trump-the-Vampire Unveiled in Slovenia”

Related posts:

  1. Get Your Personalized Trump Presidential Pardons!
  2. Statues That Should Be Torn Down
  3. “Trump’s Kool-Aid Tasting” Goes to the White House
  4. In a Troubled Country, a Novelty Candidate Gains a Following

Back to top