Mounted above one of Tehran’s busiest squares and affixed to a billboard is a cage designed to look like a jail cell. Inside it is an impersonator of President Trump. He rattles the bars, naps on his cell bed and mimics his famed Y.M.C.A. dance.
He does anything, that is, but look at the images flashing on the electronic billboard behind him, which depict a deadly American attack that struck an Iranian wedding last month.
“Failure to see this scene is a crime,” one of the scrolling images says, as rolls of yellow crime scene tape unfurl across the screen.
The piece of propagandistic performance art is one of the most eccentric in the Islamic republic’s long history of using billboards around the capital, Tehran, as a messaging tool.
Those messages reached new heights of provocation after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February. Over the summer, for example, a billboard in Tehran’s central Enghelab Square showed an image of Mr. Trump lying in a graffitied coffin.
Mr. Trump has himself been an enthusiastic purveyor of politicized and ominous messaging to Iran. He has posted images on social media, usually generated using artificial intelligence, that mock Iran’s clerical rulers or depict their annihilation by American firepower.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt