BLASTING NEWS
By Joan Altabe
The
Blanton Museum in Austin, TX reports a purchase of a 30-foot long painting that views the KKK in an unusual way. Instead of lynchings and burning crosses, you get a casual, moonlit glance at a handful of klansmen loitering by a Chevy Silverado, holding cell phones or cans of beer - not unlike a group of teenagers hanging around a street corner. But rather than biker jackets and jeans, the garb is long white robes and face masks with eye-holes. And even though there's no violence in sight, the picture is full of foreboding. The title of the painting, “The City,” also makes no reference to the Klan. Artist
Vincent Valdez, a Mexican-American living in San Antonio, told the
Texas Observer that he created the work in reaction to the way that Trump fans the flames of white nationalism. [
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