Indecline, an anarchist collective based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, first made a name for themselves in 2016. That summer, inspired by the farcical campaign of Donald Trump — and the art they’d seen during the election season, most notably Illma Gore’s portrait of the future 45, painted in her menstrual blood — the group put on a cross-country show of guerilla art. Early one August morning, teams in five cities simultaneously unveiled unauthorized, six-foot-five statues of Donald Trump, naked, his manhood comically small against the grotesque folds of his nude body. Based on these statues, crafted by a horror artist named Ginger, the installation —called, fittingly, “The Emperor Has No Balls” — was documented by a shadow crew and turned into a video project in itself, a short film of the creation and implementation of an ambitious art project.
For their newest piece, a 40-minute documentary called The Art of Protest, Indecline teamed up with Saving Banksy director Colin M. Day to turn that footage — as well as footage of their numerous installations since, from prison rooms fabricated in Trump hotels to walking a pack of leashed MAGA supporters — to illustrate the importance of art and satire in the movement for social change. In this trailer, watch activist artists from Shepard Fairey to Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova to Tom Morello discuss how they use their work for protest. “We are from the streets, and we won’t give them up quietly to the corporate warlords of information-era tyranny,” says a representative for Indecline. “The art of protest is the process of finding humor in the Armageddon, but then hiding the tools of change in between the laughter.”
