YSaC, Vol. 243: Burning crosses are not warm and fuzzy.
2009 March 18
Warm your heart and soothe your soul – $25
Kira sends this in, saying, “Yikes, because nothing says heartwarming like the KKK riding off into the sunset….”
Is it just me, or does it look like they’re riding alpacas? Or maybe tauntauns?
I’ve blurred the phone number and link to the artist’s home page, because after looking at the other works displayed there, I honestly don’t think that “Early Racist Art” was quite the genre s/he was going for — although I can’t figure out what it would be otherwise! Any ideas?
I found the original ad and was looking through this dude’s Flickr and homepage. On his Flickr, this particular pic is set to private, so maybe he doesn’t want his parents knowing he does drawings for the Klan or something.
So I found a picture of the artist on her Flickr (not a dude…), and yeah. Considering she’s black, I don’t think she’s doing this because she’s a fan of the Klan (Ew, rhyming…). Maybe it’s a political statement or something?
Again, the reason I didn’t post a link to her artwork was because I didn’t want people to get bent out of shape about this particular piece and email her, given her ethnicity — which I didn’t want to bring up or make a big deal of.
I really wanted to focus on this particular piece of art, and to focus on what it is SUPPOSED to be as opposed to what it LOOKS like it is.
With the internet, it’s not that hard to find her contact info (or anything else she chooses to put up on the internet); if people were that bent out of shape, they’d go ahead and do it whether or not they had to find her email or it was given to them. I’m more baffled than anything else, so I wanted to find her gallery to figure out what the hell is up with this. Frankly, since her ad, Flickr, and gallery are available for public viewing on the internet, they’re fair game for anyone to look at and form an opinion about. Opinions in and of themselves are harmless. I’m not going email her or anything because stirring shit with complete strangers is fairly ignorant.
Agreed — I just didn’t want people sending her email after looking at this one piece – especially since after looking at her profile and her other work, I was sure that “KKK at Sunset” wasn’t what she was going for here. If the email address was readily available here, I was worried that someone less willing to do the research would send her something offensive.
Besides, removing the contact information from the image isn’t any different from removing the Craigslist contact email from other posts, and I do that too.
That said, I don’t blame you for wanting to keep people from harassing her. Like I said, stirring shit with strangers just because you’re pissed is ignorant.
My best guess is princesses wearing big conical hats. Those could be veils hanging down behind them. Still can’t peg the species they’re riding.
If you squint just so, the second one from the right looks like a disgruntled garden gnome. Maybe those aren’t horses at all – they’re the legs of the creatures!
I didnt really see the klan thing.
They’re clearly intended as trees. It’s just hard to tell because it’s a poor excuse for art
I think the bigger issue is that someone is trying to sell art that looks like it is made by a 1st grader with poor motor skills.
I see ships with white sails on a red sea….Wow this is kind of like a Rorschach ink blot test….
I’m with Jackie on this one – I thought maybe some fairytale creatures with large pointy hats and veils down their backs. Did I get that from a Disney cartoon? Isn’t this the value of art – getting people to talk? Although actually we’re not so much talking about the piece as we’re WONDERING about the piece!
Was this done by the same person who did the Leprechaun in Mobile artist sketch?
Well, my first thought was wolves howling at the moon (I grew up in the west) but now all I see are klansmen. It’s like the candlestick or profiles of two people facing each other; you can’t see both at the same time. Aaaargh, now my brain hurts.
I see klansmen riding chocobos.
I must confess, I see gnomes as well. Maybe these are Travelocity’s roaming gnomes?
On closer inspection, all i can see is cone-hat horseback riders.
I give up. I almost want to buy it just for closer inspection.
Are they riding raptors?
She named the file klu_klux_klan_in_the_moonlight – so I think what it looks like is indeed what it is.
In that case I guess one can soothe one’s soul by using the picture as a dart board or for some other form of target practice. Warming one’s heart could come from burning it.
God invented copy machines in case one wished to keep the original for repeated exercises in soul soothing and heart warming.
Wow. In that case, yup, that’s definitely heartwarming.
Maybe she was trying for post-modern irony?
Maybe it just warms your heart to see them leaving. I’m pretty sure those are the ass ends of their horses.
I’m kinda going with this theory as well.
I’m definitely seeing Klan-like robes. However, there is a religious garment called a capirote that is worn in Spain during Holy Week that are the basis for the Klan’s pointy hats; maybe this is what the artist is going for. (Every time I saw those hats, I had to remind myself that they meant something significantly different from what I associated them with…)
Old school capirotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Goya_y_Lucientes_025.jpg
New school capirotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capuchones.jpg
I think perhaps she’s influenced by the content of various works of Philip Guston (see, “The Studio,” “City Limits,” “Outskirts,” etc.) and the style of my 7 year old niece’s early endeavors (see, “I Love You Mom,” “This is Me and a Unicorn,” “I Love You Mom” [part of a series]).
Clearly, they’re Klansmen riding on raptors in honor of Jesus.
http://tinyurl.com/57ytzq
No, they are multiple pyramid-heads riding velociraptors. Maybe.