A statue of a hoof-footed thong-wearing topless Hillary Clinton complete with a Wall Street banker resting his head on her naked breasts caused a giant fight in downtown Manhattan during the morning rush hour Tuesday.
The brawl on the mall (OK, sidewalk), right near the National Museum of the American Indian began when a female employee of the museum knocked the statue over and proceeded to sit on it so that the artist couldn’t right the piece of protest art. Others joined in and Nancy kicked the statue, and another slapped its butt.
Men and women got into tussles over the statue causing the museum employee, identified as Nancy, to proclaim that the statue was obscene as she screamed for another man to get out of her face. I’d say this piece of protest art did a fine job of doing what it was created to do: Cause controversy.
Nancy didn’t see it that way, though, and told the Daily News, “To put something up like this in front of my work place . … I shouldn’t have to see this.”
Yes, Nancy, you should have to see it.
And as an employee in a museum dedicated to a people whose culture and art had been suppressed for years, you should not just have to see it but you should support it and all art whether you like it or not.
The Hillary statue is protest art — no matter if you find it obscene or ugly or not. That protest statue caused a protest.
The fact that you sat on it to prevent the 27-year-old artist Anthony Scioli from setting it upright (although many don’t think it’s upright even when it is), is an attempt on your part to stop freedom of expression. It’s our First Amendment right to express ourselves period.
Suppressing art is strictly the province of the likes of the Rudy Giulianis of this world. If you remember, Nancy, he tried to suppress Andrew Serrano’s “Piss Christ” exhibit — a crucifix submerged in a tank of urine at the Brooklyn Museum.
This suppression of what he saw as obscene came from a man who behaved obscenely to his wife and family.
Serrano’s exhibit caused such protests and controversy, that it was even the subject of a Supreme Court case on the National Endowment for the Arts in which it was decided that moral decency must play a role in funding. You don’t have to fund it, but you do have to allow it.
And as for this particular piece of art, women are screaming (especially at the scene) that naked Hillary is offensive to women and shouldn’t be allowed. Really? Is naked Hillary with hooves any more offensive than Donald without balls as in “The Emperor Has No Balls” statues that were placed all over the country?
Why is it sexist to portray the female candidate in that way, but hilarious to portray Trump in a similar way? Hillary got sat upon and used as a weapon when a man tried to swipe the protester with it. Poor Donald just got graffitied up in Las Vegas.
While in New York City, his nakedness in Union Square was torn down like Saddam Hussein’s statue in Iraq, by Parks Department workers who then swept the broken man parts into their truck. As art it was a metaphor perhaps for life.
So congrats, Mr. Scioli. You did your job by creating a piece of art that caused people to become enraged, upset, furious, and outraged.
That’s what art is supposed to do, Nancy. Remember?