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CITYWATCH TODAY--Throwing some serious shade, unknown arsonists have burned down a macabre, 26-foot, wooden statue of Trump in Slovenia that had already been the target of threats, considerable mockery and hostile tractors. Erected last year in a village in Melania's birthplace, the statue bore a ghastly, vacant likeness to the actual living monstrosity; on weekends, when triggered, a mechanism inside opened a red mouth to expose shark-like teeth.
Its creator, Tomaz Schlegl, said it represented a "populist" with two faces, one “humane and nice," the other "that of a vampire,” though odds seem good Schlegl has a. never consulted a dictionary for the meaning of "populist" and b. never met the consistently vampire-like Trump.
The statue became both a tourist attraction and a bane to local villagers; one peeved farmer ran it over with his tractor, and after other disgruntled residents pledged to torch it by Halloween, it was moved to another village for safekeeping.
But this week's perpetrators - whether in an act of artistic censure, civil disobedience or plain old Slovenian hijinks - had evidently had enough of Trump haunting their peaceful countryside, and literally burned the statue to the ground overnight. (Video captures a few gleeful whoops.) Milan Balazic, the mayor of Moravce where the statue ended up, called the torching a "symbol of intolerance toward artistic projects in our society."
Others seemed to feel it was a symbol of intolerance toward Trump's own grievous intolerance, and maybe toward execrable artistic projects as well. Hence one comment: "He (or they) just killed the devil walking on earth. It was the right decision." The fiery destruction leaves one wooden Trump in Slovenia: a life-size Melania chainsaw-carved from a linden tree outside her hometown of Sevnica. This one's so bad - also faceless - it's been deemed "a scarecrow," "a Smurfette," "a parody," and "a disgrace.”
Yes, they are. It's also the "art" and fate they deserve.
(CityWatch guest columnist, Abby Zimet, writes for CommonDreams, where this piece was first posted.) Photo credit: Photo by Jure Makovec/AFP via Getty
-cw
