If you really enjoyed and supported the work of an artist only to find out later that the artist has a personal point of view that offends you, do you no longer like the art?
I am referring to a recent article I read about ceramicist Charles Kraft. I vaguely knew his name and had to look up his work via the Interweb. Yes, now I remember. He uses a lot of Nazi imagery in his work like the one in the picture for this post. I never thought much more about his work. I think the guns are cool and his work in general has this kind of immature boy imagery mixed with a high command of craft. The hand painted porcelain is appealing. According to Jen Graves, art critic for Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger, Kraft disclosed that for the past few years, he has been a white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Now, I am one to always be a bit naturally skeptical of anyone that uses such strong symbols of hate in their work. If you are choosing to cover your work in swastikas or make contemporary vessels of an individual associated with genocide, I tend to think that maybe you’re using this imagery in an ironic way. You must be making some sort of social critique on racism, right?. After reading the article, how can you look at Kraft’s work any other way except for what it is and probably had been from the start – it’s simple hate propaganda. I won’t go into all the things revealed about Kraft, but you can read the article here:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/charles-krafft-is-a-white-nationalist-who-believes-the-holocaust-is-a-deliberately-exaggerated-myth/Content?oid=15995245
So, what do you do if you like an artist’s work and then you find out they have some outrageous belief or behavior that you find completely offensive? Do you get rid of the work? Do you keep it even though now when you look at it, knowing what you know about the artist, you want to vomit? Maybe Kraft is saying this is just some ploy to garner attention. Maybe he has always been a white nationalist and was able to use art as the vehicle for his political agenda. You can’t possibly know the political viewpoints of every artist and if you did, you’d probably enjoy a lot less art. Thanks for that reminder, hater!