LOS FELIZ—The naked Donald Trump statue that surfaced overnight in Los Angeles last month is now being put up for auction with an estimated sale price between $10,000 and $20,000 and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to an immigrant rights campaign.
The installment, titled, “The Emperor Has No B—s” was one of five unveiled in cities across America on August 18, including, San Francisco, Seattle, Cleveland and New York; the Los Feliz statue is believed to be the only one still intact.
The project was a four-month in the making, coordinated, nationwide effort by the guerilla-art collective group, INDECLINE, who posted a video to their YouTube channel the same day the statues surfaced, outlining the process of how they were made; it can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7TeTzOgkMs
The Los Angeles installment originally appeared on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Rodney Drive in Los Feliz.
Employees at the La Luz De Jesus art gallery moved the statue from the sidewalk to the stoop of their building, to ensure it wouldn’t be dismantled by city crews.
“The explicit statue quickly became a symbol of political protest art and garnered international coverage when the gallery refused to hide or censor the statue,” a media release from the auction house said.
The statue will be auctioned off in the upcoming “Street Art and Contemporary Art” sale at Julien’s Auctions, where many of the pieces featured have political overtones, like, Knowledge Bennett’s depiction of Hillary Clinton as part of his Cojones series and Shepard Fairey’s original hope portraits of Barack Obama from 2008.
The auction is scheduled to transpire on October 22 at Julien’s Auctions Los Angeles location, where upwards of 100 pieces will be auctioned off; the collection will be open to the public before the auction, starting October 17.
The Trump campaign declined to comment.
