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Art Gallery Won't Remove Violent Trump Painting, So Their Landlord Steps In

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In the past few days, One Grand Gallery in Portland, Oregon, has come under fire for their incredibly disturbing and violent art installation featuring none other than President Donald Trump.

The gallery, which opened their “F— You, Mr. President” exhibit less than one week ago on July 13, faced near-immediate backlash as an image following the opening went viral for all the wrong reasons.

The exhibit, which was a “group show featuring dozens of artists from around the country,” had one installation in particular that caught the attention of Portland passersby — and before long, the entire country.

In the street-facing window, the gallery had put up an extremely graphic “ISIS-style” illustration of President Trump getting his throat slashed in an apparent beheading, while also wearing a tiny burning American flag pin for good measure.

The uncensored image, which is too disturbing to even show, was accompanied by the emboldened words “F— Trump” and was merely a preview for the equally upsetting art on the other side of the window.

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The gallery chose to ignore what happened to comedian Kathy Griffin when she came up with the hilarious idea to hold up a bloodied severed head with the “likeness” of Trump for a photo shoot. Apparently, Griffin’s being investigated by the feds and loss of respect by anyone who was left to respect her wasn’t enough to scare them off.

Sure, as Griffin’s half-hearted and since-retracted apology statement claimed, comedy pushes the limits, and art can do the same. But there is a stark difference between pushing the limits and jumping straight over the line and off the deep end — and it seems neither Griffin nor One Grand Gallery knew (or cared) about the difference between the two.

The comments flooded in and One Grand Gallery’s Yelp rating plummeted to just one star, but even that wasn’t enough to show them the image went too far.

Instead, the gallery posted the photo to Facebook in defense of their “art,” writing: “The same people offended over a ‘death threat’ are the same people upholding death threats & violence. Irony.” The post has since been deleted.

The gallery owner left the installation up through the weekend, and it wasn’t until the building owner Mark gave him a call demanding he take down the image that the gallery owner gave up the fight.

Mark, the owner of Total Performance Converters, rents space to the gallery and was appalled the moment he saw the installation upon returning to work Monday.

“The minute I saw it, I started trying to remove the F— Trump written on the bottom and immediately called the gallery owner and told him this had to come down,” Mark said to Big League Politics. “Art can be offensive, but this crossed the line.”

As the unnamed gallery owner took down the image, news outlets questioned his motivation for finally deciding to take it down.

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“Yeah, but people that are responding, are responding with such anger and violence. People want the gallery to go up in flames with my family,” he said to Fox 12 Oregon.

With an image so disturbing, it’s remarkable the owner didn’t stop to think about the consequences of putting it up facing a busy street in the first place — but he declined to comment on why he thought that was a good idea.

By Tuesday, the entire gallery exhibit was taken down.

Now Mark just wants his life to go back to normal, but the backlash he continues to face for the gallery’s lack of common sense may not make that possible.

“A lot of this anger is misdirected,” he said to Big League Politics. “Although we own the building, we have nothing to do with the art displayed in the exhibits. I work hard, I have a wife and kids, and I like to go fishing. We didn’t ask for all of this.”

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Liz was a senior story editor for The Western Journal.
Liz was a senior story editor for The Western Journal.
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