Indecline

Indecline, stylized as INDECLINE, is an American anarchist art collective.

Members have said that the collective was formed in 2001 and is decentralized, with "dozens" of members in affiliated groups in several US states and a few foreign countries,^[1][2] and have characterized it as "[an] underground movement [of] activists, musicians, graffiti writers, [and] photographers".^[3]

Projects

Bumfights

In 2002 Ryen McPherson, Daniel Tanner, and others operating as Indecline Films produced the first video in the Bumfights series, Bumfights: A Cause for Concern. They subsequently took down the Indecline Films website, and have said they sold the rights to the series to two investors.^[4]

Dying for Work

In August 2012, the group installed a billboard on Interstate 15 in Las Vegas with Dying for Work in black lettering on a white background and a dummy hanging from it by a noose; a companion billboard, also with a hanged man, read "Hope you're happy Wall St."^[1][5]

Largest piece of illegal graffiti

In April 2015, eight people spent six days creating the largest piece of illegal graffiti in the world: "This land was our land", painted on a disused military runway in the Mojave Desert.^[3]

Rape mural

In October 2015, in response to Donald Trump's calling Mexicans "rapists", the group spray-painted a mural depicting Trump with the slogan "¡Rape Trump!" on an old border wall on US territory approximately a mile from the Tijuana airport.^[2][6][7]

Hollywood Walk of Fame

In March 2016, members of the group glued names of African-Americans killed by police over names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and also glued the Indecline logo to the stars.^[7][8]

Donald Trump statues

On August 18, 2016, using industrial epoxy, the group glued life-sized nude statues of Trump to the sidewalk in five cities: Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. The statues, made using clay and silicone, depicted Trump with a pot belly, an "old man saggy butt", varicose veins, a "constipated" expression, a very small penis, and no testicles, and were titled The Emperor Has No Balls on engraved plates at the base; they were commissioned from Joshua "Ginger" Monroe, a Las Vegas artist who designs monsters for haunted houses and horror films.^{[1][9][10][11][12]} The Cleveland statue was in the Coventry section of Cleveland Heights; it was taken down within an hour.^[1][13] The New York statue, in Union Square, was removed early that afternoon; the New York City Parks Department made a statement that it "stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small".^{[7][12][13][14]} A bystander bit a piece out of the hair of the San Francisco statue, which was in the Castro District;^[15] it was removed early the next day,^[16] at a cost of about $4,000 because of damage to the sidewalk.^[13] The Seattle statue, which was in Capitol Hill, was claimed by a vintage store, No Parking on Pike,^[17][18] and the Los Angeles statue, on Hollywood Boulevard, by a local art gallery, Wacko,^[1] both before authorities could remove them.

The following month, two more naked Trump statues, commissioned by a New Jersey arts collective, were installed on the roof of a warehouse overlooking the New Jersey entrance to the Holland Tunnel, where Indecline also placed an inverted US flag, and on top of a billboard in the Wynwood section of Miami;^[19] the Miami statue, which Indecline said was the same one originally placed in New York, was later moved by police request closer to the Wynwood Walls graffiti center.^[20][21]

See also

• Protest art

References

External links

• Official website