CPAC’s Golden Trump Statue Was Made in Mexico And Is ‘Not an Idol,’ Artist Says
ORLANDO — Tommy Zegan says he was inspired to create the enormous gold statue of Donald Trump because he felt that other less flattering statues of the president were not doing him justice.
The outrageous sculpture, which is more than 6-feet-tall, went viral when video was shared of it being wheeled through the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday.
The piece is called “Trump and his magic wand” — a play on Barack Obama’s remark that Trump did not have a magic wand to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States.
Made of painted fiberglass, the statue was assembled in Mexico and painted in Tampa, Florida. It’s for sale for $100,000.
Zegan says he also made a stainless steel version, which he hopes to one day be displayed in the Trump Presidential Library (“It’s priceless,” he says).
He’s working on a third Trump statue — one he says “is gonna really piss off the liberals” — which will be crafted from bronze plated with 24-karat gold. He plans on selling that statue at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, for “probably about $10 million.”
“It’s not an idol,” Zegan says, responding to critics who mocked the statue and compared it to the golden calf from the Old Testament. Zegan, who was a youth pastor for nearly two decades, said “I know the biblical definition of an idol. This is not an idol. This is a sculpture.”
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