A new wooden statue of President Donald Trump has been unveiled in his wife Melania Trump’s home country of Slovenia.
It looks like something out of sandbox video game Minecraft ― and it’s dividing opinion in the village of Sela pri Kamniku, just as a similar structure of the first lady in her Slovenian hometown did last month.
Artist Tomaz Schlegl said his 26-foot-high statue of the president — which will be burned to the ground on Halloween — is a commentary on populist politics.
“For the first time since World War II populism is prevailing: look at [British Prime Minister Boris] Johnson, look at Trump, our president or [Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor] Orban. Where is this world heading?” he told Agence France-Presse.
Schlegl swiped at the hypocrisy of populist leaders by including a mechanism in the statue’s face that changes it from “very friendly during the week to really scary over the weekends,” he explained.
But some online commenters have declared the statue a “waste of wood,” per the BBC, while a farmer also reportedly attempted to plow a tractor into the artwork.
Sculptor Ales “Maxi” Zupevc chainsawed this statue of the first lady near her hometown of Sevnica in July, which some critics likened to “a Smurfette.”