Are Models of a Wall Art Worth Keeping?

TIJUANA, Mexico — Is Donald J. Trump a conceptual artist?

That’s the intriguing possibility put forth in an online petition posted on January 2 that seeks to have the group of eight prototypes for Mr. Trump’s controversial Mexican border wall designated a national monument.

The prototypes were built at a cost of $ 3.3 million and unveiled in October along the United States border near San Diego. The petition, sponsored by the puckishly named nonprofit, MAGA (the acronym recalls the president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”), seeks to protect them from demolition by invoking the Antiquities Act of 1906 and characterizes the structures as “a major Land Art exhibition” of “significant cultural value.”

The prototypes were designed to United States Customs and Border Protection specifications, built to withstand a 30-minute assault from sledgehammers or acetylene torches, and to be difficult to scale or tunnel beneath. Aesthetic considerations are largely secondary to brute strength, but when viewed up close the walls have the undeniable majesty of minimalist sculpture.

Mr. Trump dramatically reduced the size of two national monuments under federal protection in December. He would need to issue a presidential proclamation to establish the group as a monument.

Gesturing at the prototypes beyond the rusting border fence near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, south of San Diego, Christoph Büchel, the Swiss-Icelandic artist behind MAGA, said his group endorses the concept that, by electing Mr. Trump, Americans allowed his ob- sessions to be given form that qualifies as an artistic statement.

The fact that the prototypes were designed and built by private contractors matters less, Mr. Büchel said, than the impression that, upon completion, they constitute an unintended sculpture garden. “This is a collective sculpture; people elected this artist,” he said.

Even if the border wall is never built, Mr. Büchel said, the proto- types “need to be preserved because they can signify and change meaning through time. They can remind people there was the idea to have this border wall once.”

But the divisive nature of the prototypes undermines their aesthetic merit, argued Tom Eccles, the head of curatorial studies at Bard College in New York State.

“History, and thus our landscape, is replete with terrible and terrifying structures,” he said in an email. “Sculpture and art should speak to our better selves. Naming the Berlin Wall a Land Art project — or conceptual art — doesn’t make it such. These abhorrent things on the border are not art and never will be.”

The guidelines for the prototypes stipulated that the side facing America be “aesthetically pleasing” but made no provisions for the Mexican side. One prototype presents a pleasant stone facade to the United States and an unsparing concrete wall with razor wire to Mexico.

Mr. Büchel took in the squalor on the Mexican side and the prototypes bathed in flattering sunlight and said: “When you look at it here, and you see everything, it’s quite a strong conceptual impact. Visually, it is really striking. That’s why this should be preserved, because it talks so much about our history.”

Seeing President Trump’s obsession as a monument.