Where it – and he – belongs
Donald Trump’s star hasn’t had a lot of luck in the past few months – in July it was destroyed by a pickaxe, and West Hollywood voted to have it officially removed from the Walk of Fame in August. Now, an anonymous Los Angeles artist has placed prison-like plastic bars over the president’s star.
Plastic Jesus, the artist behind the installation, wrote in an email to Artnet news about this recent stunt: “There have been calls to jail Trump since the day he was elected, and today he was certainly put behind bars – or at least his now infamous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was caged.”
“Although it was very quickly damaged by a Trump supporter trying to remove it, the bars did appear to be stuck fast and were there several hours later – to the amusement of thousands of passing tourists,” he continued.
Plastic Jesus, an artist known as “the Banksy of LA”, has used his work to comment on celebrity and fame, targeting the likes of the Kardashians, Kanye West, Harvey Weinstein and the Oscars. In 2013, he spread the slogan “Stop Making Stupid People Famous” across the city, posting it on traffic stop signs and roads.
The artist is an avid critic of Trump; he has installed hundreds of signs reading “No Trump Anytime” across the country’s largest cities. Plastic Jesus also built a mini concrete wall around his Hollywood star back in 2016, before Trump became president, to make a statement against his “build a wall” campaign.
“Artists are able to connect and convey opinion in a universal way,” he added. “So I think it’s important for artists to speak out. I think art encourages dialogue and debate like no other media.”
We previously covered the artist’s work when he erected a lifesize golden statue of Kanye on Hollywood Boulevard, titled “False Idol”, sculpting the rapper in the style of a crucified Jesus. It was super close to wear the Oscars ceremony was. He told Dazed he was critiquing an industry where “there’s so much more going on beneath the surface, be it drugs or alcohol or money”.