Jackie Kennedy never had a clunky statue carved of her, with a chainsaw, but then again, we do live in a different era nowadays.
An American artist named Brad Downey commissioned a sculpture carved from a linden tree and local folk artist Ales Zupevc took chainsaw in hand and obliged. Here’s the result.
The blocky, rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a living linden tree – whose base forms a tall plinth – in a field beside the Sava River in the village of Rozno, five miles from Sevnica.
There is no attempt at an accurate likeness, to the point where the gallery in Ljubljana appears uncertain how seriously to take the statue.
“Perhaps we are simply trying vigorously to make sense of things that might only be a slapstick prank,” it says in a leaflet. “Who knows?”
Downey said he wanted to “have a dialogue with my country’s political situation” and highlight Melania Trump’s status as an immigrant married to a president sworn to reduce immigration.
The sculptor, known as Maxi, was born in the same hospital as Melania Trump, in the same month, and now mostly works as a pipe-layer.
“Let’s face it,” he says in a short film being shown as part of the exhibition, “she owns half of America while I have nothing.”
Maybe there’s some deep, hidden meaning in the piece, but so far nobody has been able to unearth it and commentary is running towards the irreverent, shall we say.
I can’t stop visualizing Nick Cage climbing to the top yelling in Nick Cage fashion “I care!”
— Tim Dohm (@tdohm22) July 6, 2019
Looks like something out of some creepy pagan ritual like in The Wicker Man
— Robert Garnsey (@rgastoria) July 6, 2019
I’m seeing babushka & go-go boots here. Total head-to-toe look. Wow.
— Amy Abramson (@AbramsonAmy) July 6, 2019
The resemblance is uncanny. The person who created it did such a great job at capturing her brilliance.
— Lynnie (@LynnieM73) July 6, 2019
Do you suppose it's nose grows every time it lies?
— Ursula Faw (@ursulafaw56) July 6, 2019
I hope the tree grows back from the roots and the statue falls over.
I think he’s captured her woodenness to just the right degree.
I agree …. my wife mentioned her transparency in the rain during the mess in DC … I said, after she mentioned lack of a bra, don’t worry, not necessary for her, plastic usually stands to a little rain pretty well ….