The Creepy Clowns of the 45th Administration (Photos)

Both Meryl Meisler's current color photos of the Greatest Show on Earth and her black-and-white reinterpretations are included in this gallery. Read more below.

Meryl Meisler photographed the Greatest Show on Earth in 1977, when the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus came to New York City. Some of these photos landed in Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ’70s Suburbia & The City, which we covered in a gallery here.

Four decades years later, in May of this year, Meryl once again had the opportunity to photograph the circus and the performers up close, for the Greatest Show on Earth’s farewell performance of “Out of This World.”

As Meryl looked at the photos from that last day she mused, “Every day seems like a chaotic circus of deceitful distraction, hateful, divisive ‘un-American’ actions, with creepy clowns running our nation amok.” And so she was inspired to reinterpret some of her 1977 photos to illustrate those feelings and poke some fun at the current administration.

Meryl says, “These clowns literally give me the creeps. The Greatest Show on Earth has ended. An administration claiming to 'Make America Great Again' is turning our society backward to darkest times.” Beware and resist the creepy clowns! November 7, 2017, is Election Day. Vote!

A special exhibit of Meryl’s reinterpretations, “Sassy Circus & Creepy Clowns,” will be on view at Bizarre Black Box Gallery, 12 Jefferson St., Brooklyn, through November 22.