F rom a Brooklyn studio that looks like a cross between a ransacked Toys R Us and a serial killer’s lair, the artist David Henry Nobody Jr is planning the first survey of his career. Held by a headless dummy strung by its heels from the ceiling are a set of photographs from the turn of the century of a then 30-year-old Nobody with the former president of the United States. The snapshots are all signed by Donald Trump in gold pen (Nobody supplied the pen).
They will be a central piece of the New York artist’s upcoming survey in New York. This was pre-selfie and filter days. The pics are candid, unprofessional and taken by random strangers.
Nobody likes the stray elements – unknown heads wandering into frame, giving sideways glances. For the artist, they inspired a project that started – sort of – as a joke: what if Trump was president? Twenty-four years later, Nobody still isn’t quite sure whether to laugh or not. Born David Henry Brown Jr, Nobody’s big break as a performance artist in New York started in the late 1990s when he was working with the British artist Dominic McGill on Carpet Rollers .
The pair would wear black tie and take a van to spots around Manhattan including Trump Tower and the Plaza hotel and roll out a red carpet. Then they would wait as a crowd assembled and rumors spread about what or who was coming. People would ask why they were standing there, what they were doing? Nobody and McGill never commented but rumors started anyway.
Was it the Q.
