Several statues of an unclothed Donald Trump appeared in public places around the United States Thursday, including one in Los Feliz.
The Los Angeles-area one is located on the sidewalk in front of Soap Plant & WACKO, a neighborhood gift shop, art gallery and book store at 4633 Hollywood Blvd.
The statue came very close to being removed by the city until the shop owner offered to move it onto private property, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“First thing I thought was that it was hilarious,” Ian Randolph, a cashier at Soap Plant and Wacko told the Times.
But the statue was still offending some passersby, who called it obscene, according to the Times.
It now appears the statue’s fate may be a matter for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office to determine, the newspaper reported.
The local statue is among multiple life-sized statues of the Republican presidential nominee in the buff that were unveiled by the anarchist artist collective INDECLINE Thursday morning, The Washington Post reported. Other locations included San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Cleveland.
The project is called, “The Emperor Has No Balls,” according to the group’s website, which has video of the statues being created.
It was conceived about four months ago and partly inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s famous work “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the newspaper reported.
“Like it or not, Trump is a larger-than-life figure in world culture at the moment,” an INDECLINE spokesman told The Post. “Looking back in history, that’s how those figures were memorialized and idolized in their time — with statues.”
The artwork, which is meant to portray the GOP nominee in a fairly unflattering light, showcased him naked in order to present him in the most humiliating way, according to The Post.
It was created by a Las-Vegas based artist who goes by the name “Ginger.” He told The Post he spent up to 25 hours each week since April working on the 80-pound statues, and googled terms such as “saggy old man butt” during the creative process.
“Starting on the project and looking at his face day in and day out when I’d come home, I began to build up some resentment,” Ginger said. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he made fun of the disabled reporter from the New York Times.”
INDECLINE’s spokesman believes the statues will only be up for a short period of time, though group members expected the one in San Francisco to last the longest.
“I don’t expect these things to last more than 30 or 45 minutes,” he told the newspaper. “But I would love to watch some irate 65-year-old Trump supporter try to take the thing down with his bare hands.”
A statue placed in New York City’s Union Square attracted a swarm of people and numerous social media posts before being removed at 1:30 p.m. local time, KTLA sister station WPIX reported.
A New York City parks department spokesman Sam Biederman gave the following statement to Gothamist, the news-and-culture website reported:
NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.
Asked about the statue at a news conference Thursday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio responded, “That is a frightening thought. … When he’s wearing clothes I don’t like him.”
