The Museum of London has carried out tests to verify the solidity of the balloon representing Donald Trump as a baby, exhibited by demonstrators hostile to the American president during his visit to the United Kingdom in June 2019. It is intended to integrate a collection presenting the symbols in the history of the British protest movement.
The world got to know the giant balloon depicting Donald Trump as an infant, clad in a diaper and holding a cell phone, in July 2018. Demonstrators in London had lifted it into the air for the first time to protest the visit of the American president on their soil.
They had repeated the exercise during a second visit in June 2019. Since then, this first inflatable effigy – resulting at the time from crowdfunding – has had a following, hovering regularly above the processions hostile to the 45th president of the UNITED STATES. And the curious should soon have the opportunity to examine it more closely at the Museum of London.
Indeed, the institution which acquired the object in 2021 announced to the British press on Thursday that it had reinflated it in a company in the city of Chelmsford to ensure the good condition of its structure and to do so, if necessary , the necessary repairs to exhibit it in peace in one of its rooms.
Contrast effect
A spokesperson for the museum explained the meaning of these precautions with the BBC“It was made to float above the Houses of Parliament during Donald Trump’s visit to London in 2019 – like an icon visible from afar, flexible and quick to climb – in contrast to the statues found there place, made from much more durable materials”.
Because the nature of the “baby Trump” – six meters high all the same – is very fragile. “Plastics age and sometimes crack unexpectedly,” said the spokesperson this time to the Evening Standard: “So these tests are intended to help us preserve it in the long term as a piece of our collection”.
Not before 2026
If these tests are conclusive, it can therefore be displayed in all its altitude within the Museum of London, which claims its apolitical character but sees in it a perfect example of British satirical “creativity”. It must also include a gallery dedicated to the symbols of demonstrations and protest movements that have marked local history, in particular alongside memories linked to the conquest of the right to vote.
Contemporary art lovers and critics of Donald Trump will have to wait, however: because it is reserved for a room in the future premises of the museum which will open in the London district of West Smithfield in 2026.
Not sure that the model passes a head there. We can even be certain of the contrary. Indeed, Donald Trump had not tasted the joke in his time, as he had entrusted to Sun: “Before, I loved the city of London. (…) But when you are made to feel that you are not welcome, why stay?”
The giant balloon bearing the image of Donald Trump is due to enter the Museum of London