Framing Trump: a look at the bizarre art inspired by the Republican candidate

He’s no oil painting but Donald Trump has somehow morphed into the artistic muse of the year.

“Artists tend to be on the left and if there’s a polarizing figure on the right, you’re likely to get more of a reaction,” said the artist Alfred Steiner, curator of the Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump exhibition, which opened on Thursday at Manhattan’s Joshua Liner Gallery.

“You could say George W Bush was similar, but I still don’t think he got the same … proliferation of artworks,” he said.

Similar to Trump himself, the art has been not only everywhere this election season but it’s often been focused on over-the-top public spectacles, designed to create a social media stir.

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Such as the naked Trump statue, with a plaque that says “the emperor has no balls”, that popped up across the US – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland and Seattle – in August. In June, during Art Basel in Switzerland, a kneeling Trump sculpture, inspired by Maurizio Cattelan’s 2001 sculpture of a kneeling Hitler, was installed in a hotel.

The Trump Hut – a small structure made to mimic Trump’s highly coiffured hair, complete with a luxurious rug and champagne inside, created by the artists and ad men Douglas Cameron and Tommy Noonan – first appeared in an exhibition in Brooklyn before making its way to the Republican national convention in Cleveland in July. Earlier this month in Brooklyn, an alt-right pro-Trump art exhibition took place, complete with a Twinks for Trump photo series and the internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos lying in a bath of pigs’ blood wearing a Make America Great Again cap.

“I don’t remember artists responding to [presidential elections] with this sort of vigor,” said Steiner. The title of his new exhibition comes from author JG Ballard’s experimental fiction Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan.

“Despite its title and that most of the works are of Trump or Clinton, it’s not intended to be a straight-up political show,” said Steiner, noting that it was neither in support of nor against Trump. “Artists are responding to this essay in the context of the election, not necessarily to provide any particular message,” he added.

Regardless, with much of the art focused on sex and politics, it seems particularly apt in an election in which women are accusing the Republican nominee of inappropriate sexual conduct. The exhibit includes Steiner’s own artworks, portraits of the nominees painted in watercolors – they look like photos – that resemble collages of genitals in the shape of a person. So yes, basically a Trump with a vulva for hair and Clinton wearing a suit of penises.

“I had to start painting it long before Trump became the nominee, thinking: ‘There’s no way he’ll make it.’ The longer he stays in it, the more interesting this painting gets. So, I’m happy for my show but sad for the country and the Republican party,” sad Steiner.

Another participant in the show is Brian Andrew Whiteley with The Legacy Stone, also known as the Trump gravestone that mysteriously appeared one day in March in Central Park.

Last week a Trump-styled fortune telling machine – like Zoltar from Tom Hanks’ Big – popped up on New York’s streets, constantly moving to different locations including the Fox News studios, outside Trump Tower in Midtown and next to a Mexican restaurant, creating a flurry of Instagram posts.

When you press the red button, Trump “reads” a message – voiced by the Trump impersonator and comedian Anthony Atamanuik – with 30 different ones available, depending on the location. For example, messages about Muslims were programmed for its appearance in front of a mosque in Astoria, Queens. “I build the best deportation trains, believe me, my trains are so much better than the trains the Germans used,” said the Trump Zoltar. It then spits out a “misfortune”. The Guardian’s read: “If you wish to see your future … build a fallout shelter.”

Four anonymous artists from Brooklyn are behind the piece, which is traveling around the city and hopes to make it to the third debate next Wednesday in Las Vegas.

When asked about the proliferation of Trump art, the artists told the Guardian by email (the sender was “Trump Zoltar”) that they disagreed Trump was inspiring lots of artists.

“We’ve actually been surprised at the lack of artistic expression, or even good old-fashioned protesting, for that matter. It seems like many people, even Clinton supporters, have begun to accept the completely unacceptable,” they wrote. “We wanted people to stop thinking Trump is some kind of entertaining meme. He’s not a joke – he’s a real danger to this country. It’s all fun and games until someone gets elected president.”The artists acknowledge that the highly liberal streets of NYC make for pretty safe territory to mock Trump. “The real test of this machine would be to bring it into enemy territory. A Trump rally would be great, and quite possibly dangerous.”

What about Hillary Clinton art? Apart from a few pieces in the Steiner exhibition, the Democratic nominee has not seen a flood of artworks created out of inspiration or dread of her presidency. She’s too much of a politician to inspire artists, says Steiner. “I think Bernie Sanders probably would have inspired more, almost fan art,” he added.