\u201cAs the United States marks its 250th anniversary, we found ourselves returning to questions that animated the original project: spectacle, patriotism, celebration and power,\u201d Catron and Outlaw said in a statement. \u201cSymbols persist. Myths persist. Their meanings shift. Two years after its initial appearance, the sculpture returns to a country that is both familiar and changed, revealing new tensions within a symbol that once seemed self-evident.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw, Hot Dog: The Second Serving, 2026 Photo: The Art Newspaper<\/p>\n
The sculpture\u2019s return was marked, on Wednesday (22 July) with a pageant whose contestants, many of them in drag, were judged for their over-the-top performances of \u201cAmerican-ness\u201d. Judges included the actor and designer Waris Ahluwalia, the comedian and podcaster Lily Marotta, the executive director of art non-profit Creative Time Jean Cooney and Curtis Sliwa<\/a>, the perennial Republican candidate for New York City mayor.<\/p>\n As with its original iteration, Hot Dog: The Second Serving walks a fine line between humour and sincerity. It functions, in part, as an earnest celebration of Americana. But there is also satire and critique available in the presentation, for observers who want to dig in.<\/p>\n \u201cThe history of the hot dog and how it\u2019s made, how it got to where it is today, it really is an American story, for better and often for worse\u2014from the people who make it and the people who sell it to the people who eat it and the people who profit off it,\u201d Catron told The Art Newspaper in 2024. \u201cEverything is wrapped up together in this item that is also fun and silly\u2014but you start digging in and it starts getting a little darker.\u201d<\/p>\n The artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw pose in front of Hot Dog in the City (2024) during its initial exhibition in Times Square in 2024 Photo by Steven Molina Contreras<\/p>\n The golden figure of Liberty that has been added to the sculpture\u2019s rising end matches the one that appears atop renderings of president Donald Trump\u2019s planned triumphal arch<\/a> in Washington, DC. And at the end of the 22 July pageant, the winning contestant triggered the sculpture’s confetti eruption by hitting a large button labelled \u201cEpstein Files\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTimes Square has always been a place where America puts itself on display for the world, and there\u2019s no better stage, and no better moment than the nation\u2019s 250th birthday, to ask what we’re actually celebrating,\u201d said Anna Starling, the vice president for development and partnerships at the Times Square Alliance and the director of Times Square Arts, which presented the sculpture\u2019s inaugural 2024 iteration and its second serving. \u201cJen Catron and Paul Outlaw hold that spectacle up to the light, with humor, with scale and with real provocation.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/95a367eb627c4157469b66e9cf9279a0ec8ec71c-2000x1334.jpg\"\/)
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