"Outside an entrance to the Second Avenue subway station in Manhattan's East Village, commuters and passersby are confronted with an artwork portraying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detaining the Statue of Liberty. Longtime New York City street artist Doug Groupp, who uses the moniker Clown Soldier, created "Attack on Liberty" on November 26. The black and white spray-painted work binds immigration crackdowns to an erosion of civil liberties more broadly."
"Groupp's scene of ICE arresting the Statue of Liberty punctuates a particularly notorious year in United States immigration history, one defined by the arrest of a pro-Palestinian student protester and green card holder, Mahmoud Khalil; the deportation of hundreds of men to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador; and the targeting of immigrants with no criminal history."
"The subway entrance artwork continues a renewed use of the Statue of Liberty as an anti-Trump symbol. In a Northern French town earlier this year, Dutch street artist Judith de Leeuw portrayed a massive Statue of Liberty in a gesture of shame as a commentary against the Trump administration's deportation policies. In the spring, the White House rebuked a comment by a French politician calling for the repatriation of the sculpture, which has occupied the New York harbor since 1886."
A black-and-white spray-painted mural outside the Second Avenue subway entrance in Manhattan's East Village depicts ICE officers detaining the Statue of Liberty. The piece, titled "Attack on Liberty", was created November 26 by Doug Groupp, who uses the moniker Clown Soldier, for a reported fee of $120. The imagery links immigration enforcement to a broader erosion of civil liberties and visualizes fears that justice, sanctuary, and freedom are being carried off. The work punctuates a year marked by high-profile immigration actions including arrests, deportations to El Salvador, and targeting of immigrants without criminal history. The Statue of Liberty continues to function as an anti-Trump symbol in global street art and political commentary.
Read at Hyperallergic
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