Legal developments for the Trump administration have consequences in D.C. beyond the political—they often mean drink specials and a new projection on the Trump hotel located on Pennsylvania Avenue from local visual artist Robin Bell.
And so the courtroom dramas that played out on Tuesday, during which President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign manager Paul Manafort were deemed guilty of multiple crimes, also played out on the exterior walls of the Trump International Hotel that evening. A projection reading “Felons Welcome Here,” with an arrow pointing to the entrance, alternated with the words “Guilty” and “Criminal.”
Bell was hired by American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC that calls itself the “research and messaging epicenter of the Resistance.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes, two of which are related to paying off women in exchange for their secrecy during the 2016 election “at the discretion of the candidate“—Trump. While that was happening in New York, a jury in Alexandria, Va. found Manafort guilty of eight charges in his financial fraud trial.
Bell says that “this was the most last-minute projection we’ve ever done.” He says American Bridge contacted him shortly after the news broke and asked if he was able to get something together that evening. “It usually takes a few days and we did it in a couple of hours.”
The projections were further complicated by the rain. “When we first set to do it, I looked at the weather and it was clear,” says Bell. “As soon as everything was booked, it just started downpouring again.” Still, the team was able to project for nearly a half hour.
Bell’s first projection at the hotel in November 2016 read “Experts Agree: Trump Is A Pig,” and he’s also lit up the buildingwith phrases like “Pay Trump Bribes Here,” and “The president of the United States is a known racist and a Nazi sympathizer.” He’s also projected on the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency buildings.
The projections are legal, because there’s no property damage. “We know we’re allowed to do it. The police kind of know we’re allowed to do it. But it all kind of depends on the officer and their mood,” Bell told AP, which reports his work with activists groups “has turned into an unexpected moneymaker.”
Tuesday’s projection wasn’t the first inspired by Cohen. Bell previously had an image of the lawyer looking like the lead character from the 1980s classic film Say Anything. Cohen is pictured holding a boombox next to the text “Says Everything.”
So when does Bell decide a news story is worthy of a projection? “I am definitely not trying to react to everything Trump says or does because I don’t want to follow his madness,” says Bell. “We’re basically trying to figure out how we can navigate out of this, for lack of a better word, shit show that we’re in.”
Rachel Kurzius