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Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf's anti-Trump project is back, in a new location

Carly Mallenbaum
USA TODAY
Shia LaBeouf stands in front of his 'HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US' installation New York, before it was shut down and relaunched in New Mexico.

Shia LaBeouf's anti-Trump art installation has passersby read the text "He will not divide us" as part of an Internet livestream. Though clearly that's a sentiment about the new president, it's also something LaBeouf and his collaborators are saying about the project's first venue.

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The "participatory performance artwork" by LaBeouf and collaborators Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner launched outside New York’s Museum of the Moving Image on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, but has since been shut down. According to LaBeouf's site, the New York museum "abandoned the project" on Feb. 10, and the installation relocated to a wall outside the El Rey Theater in Albuquerque, N.M. on Feb. 20.

The Museum of the Moving Image says that it shut down the project, because it "created a serious and ongoing public safety hazard for the Museum, its visitors, staff, local residents and businesses." It continued: "While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested on the site of the installation and ultimately necessitated this action."

The artist the museum is referring to? LaBeouf, who pulled the scarf off an unidentified 25-year-old man.

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LaBeouf's site explained the fallout with the New York museum this way: "From the outset, the museum failed to address our concerns about the misleading framing of our piece as a political rally, rather than as a participatory performance artwork resisting the normalisation (sic) of division ..It is our understanding that the museum bowed to political pressure in ceasing their involvement with our project ... As of February 18, 2017, we are proud to be continuing HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US at the El Rey Theater, Albuquerque."

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