Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign bus from the Iowa caucuses went on sale last year for $15,000. I didn’t know who bought it, but it turns out a couple of Republican policy-criticizing artists called t.Rutt did. And they’ve turned it into an anti-Trump installation piece called T.RUMP.
The bus itself is from 1981 and has one million miles on the clock, and T.Rutt has transformed it to campaign against Republican presidental nominee Cheesehead No. 1. The artwork combines “antique swords, mirrors and beds, a bronze and glass ballot box, colored Plexiglass, video and female hygiene products into objects occupying a deep red-painted Trumpian lair.”
Trumpian lair. Why does that sound like a place where smiles and reason go to die?
The artists claim that the rolling installation, which they drive from Trump rally to Trump rally, is meant to explore “the bullying aspects of male-to-male culture and Trump’s xenophobic vision for America’s future.”
As it turns out, before the bus had anything to do with Trump, it was used primarily for bachelor parties. There’s a stripper pole inside and the tables in the front have been reinforced for table dancing, according to this interview with t.Rutt on VICE.
And you know what? That’s an oddly fitting previous life for this bus.