The mystery artists responsible for several statues and installations mocking President Donald Trump that have appeared on the National Mall over the past year have found a new location to display their work.
On Thursday morning, they installed their 10-foot-tall statue of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein — holding hands and each with a foot raised behind themselves — in front of the Busboys and Poets restaurant at 14th and V Streets NW.
The mystery artists responsible for several statues and installations mocking President Donald Trump that have appeared on the National Mall over the past year have found a new location to display their work.
On Thursday morning, they installed their 10-foot-tall statue of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein — holding hands and each with a foot raised behind themselves — in front of the Busboys and Poets restaurant at 14th and V Streets NW.
The statue’s reemergence coincides with renewed demands by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress for a closer examination of the relationship between the president and Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019. Thousands of new files were released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
The statue, titled “Best Friends Forever,” had originally been placed on the Mall in September in view of the U.S. Capitol. The National Park Service removed it, saying it was out of compliance with the issued permit. Damaged in the removal process, the mostly repaired statue was provided a new permit and reinstalled on the Mall for a week in early October.
The artists, whose identities are not known to The Washington Post, contacted media outlets Thursday morning to share that the statue was in place in the new location.
Andy Shallal, the founder and CEO of Busboys and Poets and a longtime liberal activist in Washington, said he was contacted Wednesday evening by a representative of the artists to ask if the restaurant would host the statue.
“It was a call out of the blue, but we didn’t hesitate,” Shallal said in an interview. “We understood the satire and exactly what it was saying. Art has a way of speaking truth when our elected officials and politicians tend to fail.”
Shallal said the statue of Trump and Epstein will remain outside of the restaurant for a few days.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The statue’s placement Thursday drew a steady stream of visitors taking photos and discussing it with one another.
Arnold Holder was in town from California for a friend’s funeral when he stopped to eat at the restaurant and spotted the statue.
“I haven’t taken a single picture since I’ve been here, but I definitely need to take a photo of these two clowns,” Holder, 75, said as he held up his phone to capture the image. “We need this. Art is supposed to disturb people and make people think.”
Macy Rapp, a 23-year-old who lives near the restaurant, said she was glad to see the statue in her neighborhood. She and her friends had gone to see it when it was on the Mall, but Rapp said she hopes residents who don’t typically visit the Mall will see it this time.
“It’s so cool to have it here, and it’s a good way to bring awareness,” Rapp said. “It really shows who Trump is to me.”
For Joseph Webb, who also lives in the neighborhood, the timing of the statue’s appearance was appropriate.
“You look at this and all the emails that are coming out now, and I think it’s pretty common sense the dominoes are going to fall,” the 24-year-old said.
Trump and Epstein were once friends and were spotted together at parties, but their relationship appeared to have soured in 2004, four years before Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting prostitution. When Epstein was arrested in 2019 on suspicion of sex-trafficking underage girls, Trump, then in his first term as president, said: “I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan.”
The artists responsible for the Trump-Epstein statue have created several works critical of the president over the past year, including a statue paying mock tribute to the Jan. 6 rioters, a neo-Nazi tiki torch and a “Dictator Approved” statue that quoted totalitarian leaders praising Trump.
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