So, about 11 months ago I checked my phone after having some lovely morning sex and discovered that Trump had just been shot! Which was one hell of a coincidence, but unfortunately we were never able to replicate the finding. Anyway, that’s my personal connection. Let’s see what the Guardian’s art critic thought of that photo. You know the one.
It’s weird we don’t really see or hear about it anymore, I guess it served its purpose. He’s in charge now, we don’t need to be reminded. He may be a fascist, a thug, one of the worst people imaginable, but he sure knows how to be an emblem for a movement.
The clenched fist as a symbol of defiance/resistance dates from Republicans in the Spanish civil war (Joan Miró’s 1937 poster Aidez l’Espagne), and has since spread and, of course, co-opted with a white-on-black variety by white supremacists.
Or here is it just a pumping symbol of fighting spirit. Same as Trump using rock music; whatever works. He’s a rhetorical collage artist. The flag is another key aspect, associating his wounds with the country, which would like to think of itself as (somehow) still the underdog (and also the overdog). The flag makes it, and positions this image in a canon of similar defiance+American flag patriotic images. BLEUGH.
Obvious religious and mysical rhymings and associations. American assassinations have long been associated with Christian martydom (see Bobby Kennedy, or an inversion of John F. Kennedy, swamped by agents after he was already dead).
This is surreal, in the sense of it was fully automatic art. “An electoral campaign that begins with such an image of extremes is one that’s headed into uncharted, frightening places.” Too right :((