The naked statue of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, titled “The Emperor Has No Balls,” sold for $22,000 at Julien’s Auction, a street art auction house, on Saturday night.
The statue initially appeared on Hollywood Boulevard in August. It was initially estimated to be sold for $10,000, but since it was the most talked about piece in the auction, it was sold more than double the initial estimate, LA Times reported.
INDECLINE, an anonymous art collective which brings a punk-rock ethos to ambitious street art filmed and spread on social media to ensure the message continues long after the installation is removed, is credited with introducing the statue.
It was the same group which painted a mural in Tijuana with the words “Rape Trump” on the U.S.-Mexico border wall after Trump said in summer that Mexico sends rapists to the U.S. INDECLINE also painted the words “This Land Was Our Land” on the Mojave Desert in California which the group said is the largest illegal graffiti piece in the world. The graffiti is visible from the air.
But Trump’s life-size naked statue is INDECLINE’s most talked about installation. Besides the one in Hollywood just auctioned, there are similar statues in San Francisco, Cleveland, Seattle and New York which, before taken down by city workers, generated a social media storm.
According to Julien’s Auctions, part of the proceeds of the sale would go to the National Immigration Forum, a top immigration advocacy group, according to CBS.