Texas museum buys 'The City' painting about racism in America by Latino artist Vincent Valdez

BLASTING NEWS
By Joan Altabe
The artist Vincent Valdez works on an eight panel painting of modern day klansmen in his studio in San Antonio. Photograph: Michael Stravato/Blanton Museum of Art
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. [More]
Vincent Valdez’s work “The City” is on display at the Blanton Museum of Art. In a forum on Tuesday for the unveiling, Valdez talked about the quiet ubiquity of white supremacy in American life. Rodolfo Gonzalez for American-Statesman
Black & White, the KKK, and the Enduring Banality of Evil: “The Beginning is Near (Part I)” by Vincent Valdez