Republican Monopoly, 2022
Board game, variable dimensions, 2022
This playable board game emerges from the artist’s conversations with Republicans in Richmond, Virginia, and functions as a critical reworking of the original game structure. While it retains the basic framework of Monopoly, it introduces a series of subversions that effectively suspend its governing rules. Within this altered system, players are permitted to “borrow” unlimited funds from the bank, redistribute wealth arbitrarily, make substantial gifts to one another, and otherwise act without the constraints that ordinarily regulate exchange and accumulation.
The game stages a distorted reflection of political and media power through puppet figures representing Trump’s inner circle and several of his most visible supporters, including the QShaman, who (both within the work and in public discourse) is repeatedly positioned as incarcerated regardless of who performs the role. Participants may adopt roles such as Fox News personalities, members of Trump’s cabinet, or family members, occupying identities tied to systems of influence and narrative production. By allowing the figures of Trump’s associates to be manually manipulated within the space of Monopoly, the work exposes the instability of self-representation and the performative nature of authority. It critiques the dynamics through which power is constructed, circulated, and normalized, particularly within media ecosystems that blur the boundaries between fact, performance, and manipulation.
Photo credits: Terry Brown
