Mungo Thomson


I approached as many piñata shops as I could find with the same instructions for making a George W. Bush piñata (gray or navy blue suit, gray-brown hair, gold pin on tie, etc.). I've managed to collect about fifteen at this point from those who agreed to produce it (many wouldn't), all wildly different—fat, thin, thumbs-up, and even, for some reason, mustached.

I make a lot of different things, often out of an absurd or fleeting impulse that I try to socialize in some way. I initiated this project out of bewilderment at the degree of support President Bush had at the start of the Iraq war—an astronomical approval rating and the overwhelming appearance of consensus in the media that things were on course in spite of being insane. So this was a humble effort to spread some dissent—at least among a few piñata makers and children.