100 days has always been an arbitrary milestone, and a pretty silly way of judging presidencies. But for every 100 think pieces on Donald Trump’s complete lack of accomplishments since taking office is one pretty damn genius creative take on his administration’s incompetence. See: the latest episode of The Simpsons, the “Our First 100 Days” music project, and these charitable triptych skate decks created by Ai Weiwei and Shepard Fairey. Millions of anti-Trump protesters have taken to the streets since the November election, but there are still 1,364 days to go. Why march if you can roll?
The decks are a collaboration with creative non-profit The Skateroom. Weiwei’s “Study of Perspective – White House” (1995-2003), part of his controversial 2000 Shanghai Biennale exhibition. One deck costs $666, with 66 autographed versions going for a heftier $3,000. A significant part of the proceeds will go to two different NGOs: Halklarin köprüsü based in Turkey, and B’Tselem based in Israel. Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Barack Obama “Hope” campaign and the more recent “We the People” protest posters, has recreated his 2016 “No Future” newspaper screenprint. His decks are going for $450 and support the Amplifier foundation, an “Art Machine for Social Change.”
“My art is usually social and political regardless of who is in the White House, but my concerns and frustrations are amplified by the election of Donald Trump,” Fairey said in a statement. “Trump appealed to an uninformed electorate who looked for scapegoats and were driven by most likely one or more of the dark impulses listed in the image.”
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Images via The Skate Room