A giant, inflatable “Trump Rat” will tower over Washington

AT FIRST glance, you might not notice. There’s the
tangerine-tinted skin. The buttercream half-bouffante. The long red
tie. Everything looks like standard-issue Trump caricature — till
you get to the teeth. They jut out like a rodent’s, as if for
chewing up opponents or gnawing on one’s own political tail.

This, standing 15 feet tall and puffed out by hot air, is Trump
Rat. And he is set to make his Washington debut come lunchtime
Tuesday on the green of Dupont Circle, for a two-day engagement a
short hop north of the White House.

This political cartoon in balloon form might look like one of
those oversized, inflatable rats that unions bring to protests, but
“Trump Rat was custom made,” the artwork’s co-creator says, “from
the ground up.”

That creator, John Post Lee, is a New York gallery owner
who was moved to help manufacture Trump Rat shortly after the
president’s victory last November. “Probably,” Lee says of the
timing, “when my Ambien prescription ran out.”

Politically, Lee identifies as “a humanist” — he wants his
federal government to protect people’s rights, infrastructure and
environment, and he’s a capitalist business owner who’s critical of
war profiteering. He emphasizes: “My values are those that many
people share.”

Lee is a Philadelphia native who’s been a New Yorker for 35
years — long enough to be especially familiar with Trump as a
public figure. “For those of us who lived through New York in the
’80s,” he says, “Trump was no more than a sleazy, mean-spirited
real estate developer that we were all wise [to] . … He represented
a vulgar, tawdry opulence, stylewise — the-Gilded Age
dictator-in-exile eclectic modernism.”

But that was before Trump won the presidency and, to a man like
Lee, became a “toxic existential” threat.

In the quarter-century that he has run the BravinLee Programs
gallery in Chelsea, Lee and his wife have mostly steered clear of
mounting overtly political art content. Yet he has always been
interested in politics, he says, and after “this debacle of an
election,” he asked himself: “What can I do?”

“I wanted to do something meaningful, and also something
cathartic to help myself,” Lee says. “This is what I know — I know
how to help artists make things.” And he believes that artists can
take on “a meaningful role in dark times.”

So Lee reached out to Jeffrey Beebe, a New York-based artist
whose work he had shown, and together they worked up a sketch for a
rodent-faced Trump — “like an early Walt Disney character but more
snouty,” Lee says, noting that he has long been fascinated by “how
effective rats are at being grotesque.”

Character sketch complete, Team Trump Rat launched a Kickstarter
last March, seeking $10,000. Once fully funded by hundreds of
backers, the team hired Inflatable Images, an Ohio-based provider
of giant plastic mascots, to build Trump Rat to spec. The sketch
“became 3-D renderings,” Lee says, noting that the vision changed
over 12 weeks, prompting such ongoing directives as: “Make the tie
longer!”

Two weeks ago, he made his debut near Trump Tower, drawing
much vocal support, Lee says, as well as some colorful personal
insults.

That event led to a New York chapter of the ACLU putting Lee in
touch with the National Park Service, and the gallery owner soon
had permission to inflate Trump Rat on a patch of green at Dupont
Circle.

Lee underscores that Trump Rat is not intended to be a symbol of
anger or hate, like some inflatable effigy. Actual Trump
effigies have popped up around the globe, including in New Zealand,
Spain, Germany and Thailand. Trump Rat seems closer to
the giant, golden-coiffed Trump Chicken that was inflated
near the White House on Aug. 9, just several months after an
activist projected the words “Pay Trump Bribes Here” onto the
nearby Trump International Hotel.

Lee says that Trump Rat arrives strictly as tall satirical
commentary of a president whom the gallery owner calls “the
ridiculer in chief” — a man he believes exploits racism and science
denial for self-serving political gain.

“I’m trying to hold a mirror up to how this person behaves,” Lee
says, “as a character portrait of the man.”

washingtonpost.com

AT FIRST glance, you might not notice. There’s the
tangerine-tinted skin. The buttercream half-bouffante. The long red
tie. Everything looks like standard-issue Trump caricature — till
you get to the teeth. They jut out like a rodent’s, as if for
chewing up opponents or gnawing on one’s own political
tail.

This, standing 15 feet tall and puffed out by hot air, is Trump
Rat. And he is set to make his Washington debut come lunchtime
Tuesday on the green of Dupont Circle, for a two-day engagement a
short hop north of the White House.

This political cartoon in balloon form might look like one of
those oversized, inflatable rats that unions bring to protests, but
“Trump Rat was custom made,” the artwork’s co-creator says, “from
the ground up.”

That creator, John Post Lee, is a New York gallery owner
who was moved to help manufacture Trump Rat shortly after the
president’s victory last November. “Probably,” Lee says of the
timing, “when my Ambien prescription ran out.”

Politically, Lee identifies as “a humanist” — he wants his
federal government to protect people’s rights, infrastructure and
environment, and he’s a capitalist business owner who’s critical of
war profiteering. He emphasizes: “My values are those that many
people share.”

Lee is a Philadelphia native who’s been a New Yorker for 35
years — long enough to be especially familiar with Trump as a
public figure. “For those of us who lived through New York in the
’80s,” he says, “Trump was no more than a sleazy, mean-spirited
real estate developer that we were all wise [to] . … He represented
a vulgar, tawdry opulence, stylewise — the-Gilded Age
dictator-in-exile eclectic modernism.”

But that was before Trump won the presidency and, to a man like
Lee, became a “toxic existential” threat.

In the quarter-century that he has run the BravinLee Programs
gallery in Chelsea, Lee and his wife have mostly steered clear of
mounting overtly political art content. Yet he has always been
interested in politics, he says, and after “this debacle of an
election,” he asked himself: “What can I do?”

“I wanted to do something meaningful, and also something
cathartic to help myself,” Lee says. “This is what I know — I know
how to help artists make things.” And he believes that artists can
take on “a meaningful role in dark times.”

So Lee reached out to Jeffrey Beebe, a New York-based artist
whose work he had shown, and together they worked up a sketch for a
rodent-faced Trump — “like an early Walt Disney character but more
snouty,” Lee says, noting that he has long been fascinated by “how
effective rats are at being grotesque.”

Character sketch complete, Team Trump Rat launched a Kickstarter
last March, seeking $10,000. Once fully funded by hundreds of
backers, the team hired Inflatable Images, an Ohio-based provider
of giant plastic mascots, to build Trump Rat to spec. The sketch
“became 3-D renderings,” Lee says, noting that the vision changed
over 12 weeks, prompting such ongoing directives as: “Make the tie
longer!”

Two weeks ago, he made his debut near Trump Tower, drawing
much vocal support, Lee says, as well as some colorful personal
insults.

That event led to a New York chapter of the ACLU putting Lee in
touch with the National Park Service, and the gallery owner soon
had permission to inflate Trump Rat on a patch of green at Dupont
Circle.

Lee underscores that Trump Rat is not intended to be a symbol of
anger or hate, like some inflatable effigy. Actual Trump
effigies have popped up around the globe, including in New Zealand,
Spain, Germany and Thailand. Trump Rat seems closer to
the giant, golden-coiffed Trump Chicken that was inflated
near the White House on Aug. 9, just several months after an
activist projected the words “Pay Trump Bribes Here” onto the
nearby Trump International Hotel.

Lee says that Trump Rat arrives strictly as tall satirical
commentary of a president whom the gallery owner calls “the
ridiculer in chief” — a man he believes exploits racism and science
denial for self-serving political gain.

“I’m trying to hold a mirror up to how this person behaves,” Lee
says, “as a character portrait of the man.”

washingtonpost.com