“I’ve done two satirical, political auctions before, they were quite a long time ago now but they were really well received and the first one was a pretty awful portrait of Michael Laws and Trade Me loved it. At the time they emailed me and said, ‘can we add this to cool auctions?’ and it did really well because of that,” Drummond said.
Artist Josh Drummond who painted the Christopher Luxon portrait was raising funds for Kiwipal and Rainbow Youth.
Journalist David Farrier first reported on the Luxon artwork last week on his website Webworm.
No one from Trade Me was available for an interview but in a statement, James Ryan from policy and compliance said the artwork breached its guidelines.
“We don’t allow listings that feature high-profile politicians with material of a suggestive nature and/or graphic iconography. For example, in the past we have removed listings relating to Jacinda Ardern. This is not a new policy,” Ryan said.
“To be clear, this is the only reason that the listing was removed. It had nothing to do with political interference or the causes the listing supported. Trade Me allows fundraising for victims of war and also organisations that support our rainbow community here in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
But in a response to Drummond, Trade Me said the work was removed because it had concerns it was “risky for buyers or against the family-friendly spirit of the community”.
Drummond did not think the response was good enough.
“I just thought it was weird because the painting isn’t meant to be sexually suggestive and graphic, it could mean pretty much anything. The common meaning of graphic would probably be synonymous with sexually suggestive or sexually explicit, so I’m assuming that’s what they mean but the painting isn’t either of those things and it’s not intended to be,” Drummond said.
He explained the meaning of the painting had a few layers to it and was inspired by an official portrait of King Charles III.
“Basically, it was meant to be what if that portrait was a little bit ghastlier. The original idea was to have Luxon’s head popping out from a wall of flesh which was the meaning a lot of people got from that King Charles portrait ... I found that the photo reference I used for Luxon wasn’t working with that wall of flesh idea so I was like, ‘Oh I’ll make it more of a tunnel’,” Drummond said.
He said Trade Me’s reasoning for removing his artwork came across as hypocritical based on the types of items he found on its website, including Nazi regalia.
“Some people on Bluesky found an actual Nazi rifle ... stuff that’s still up includes a whole tonne of white supremacist and Nazi memorabilia. One of the most noticeable things there was a Nazi camp sign, so a sign in German warning about an electric fence.”
He said there was a whole bunch of nude art including one a user of Reddit found of an underage girl by an Australian artist.
He also noted there was Maga – Make Ardern Go Away caps, moa bones and more recently, Luxon on a coffee mug with an offensive caption on it.
