Donald Trump Finally Scores the Bust of his Dreams

There’s something inevitable about news of the latest installment of anti-Trump protest art. First we had the giant ‘Trump Chicken’ balloon, then the ‘Trumpy the Rat’ inflatable. Now climate change activists Melting Ice are crowdfunding for half a million dollars, with the aim of employing a crack team of Finnish and Mongolian ice sculptors to carve the Donald’s face into an arctic iceberg. They call it ‘Project Trumpmore’, and say that it will warn people (and Trump) about the very real threat of climate change: ‘We want to build the monument for all of us, so we can see how long the sculpture lasts before melting.’ It’s amazing to think that in over a year of Trump piñatas and depictions of turds in yellow wigs, we still haven’t brought down the current US administration.  SAD!

Speaking of monuments, one eccentric English aristocrat has an idea: to build a 200-foot sculpture in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. Terence Kearley, Third Viscount Devonport thinks that building a giant Elizabeth Landmark in Northumberland will fire up tourism in the region. And despite not knowing the cost or seeking planning permission, the ardent royalist has already commissioned designs from three artists – Simon Hitchens, Colin Rose and Peter Evans – to produce a work that ‘will celebrate our Queen as a figurehead and a leader for many, many hundreds of years to come.’

Oh dear – the fight over Frida Kahlo just won’t stop. After relatives of the late Mexican artist (and notable feminist and Communist Party member) won an injunction last month blocking sales of a Barbie doll modelled on Kahlo, now the licensing company, the Frida Kahlo Corporation, are counter-suing. Kahlo’s great-niece has been hit with a lawsuit which alleges that she has been unlawfully asserting rights over the “Frida Kahlo’ brand. ‘I feel uneasy about my painting,’ Kahlo wrote in 1951. ‘Above all I want to transform it into something useful for the Communist revolutionary movement.’ Look how that turned out.

A keen-eyed reader in Perth writes to correct our reporting in the last installment of 'In the Name of Art' of a triumphant outing for nudists at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo. The Paris Naturists Association are claiming it as a breakthrough – but, in fact, the Australians got there years ago, our reader points out. The artist Stuart Ringholt has been leading nudist visits around leading galleries including the National Gallery of Australia and Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney since 2012. And by all reports they’re a sellout!