A University of Miami professor has received death threats for her latest artwork, three American flags sewn into hoods resembling those of the Ku Klux Klan.
The masks are secured on a cart that has wheels shaped in a formation that resembles a Swastika.
The piece, called ‘American Mask,’ is part of a faculty art exhibition at the university’s off-campus gallery in Miami’s Wynwood Art District, the Miami New Times reports.
It was created by Billie Grace Lynn, an associate professor of sculpture at the university in Coral Gables.
Billie Grace Lynn has an artwork on display at the University of Miami’s off-campus gallery in Wynwood, Miami called ‘American Mask’
The artwork is three American flags sewn into hoods resembling those of the Ku Klux Klan
The artwork is balanced on a cart whose wheels are shaped to resemble Swastikas
The flags are displayed in the gallery’s window. The show opened on October 23 and lasts until November 12.
Lynn discussed with the Miami New Times how her upbringing in Louisiana, where she says the KKK has a ‘strong’ presence, and the white nationalist protests this past summer in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in one death influenced her art.
‘I consider myself a patriot,’ she told the New Times. ‘The flag is not sacred in itself.’
Describing her motive for producing the piece, she elaborated to CNN: ‘”You’re concealing your racism and bigotry behind the flag and I see you.
‘”I’m calling it out and I’m naming it.” Until you name something, people can’t begin to think about it and that’s why art is powerful.’
The university said in a statement to CNN that it ‘supports artistic expression and freedom of speech’ and that the piece ‘was not reviewed or approved in advance…nor would it be subject to such review’.
Lynn says she has received messages – with the senders’ email visible – threatening to kill her.
She says she has also received messages of support.
Lynn told the Miami New Times: ‘The flag is not sacred in itself.’ She added to CNN: ‘”You’re concealing your racism and bigotry behind the flag and I see you. I’m calling it out and I’m naming it.” Until you name something, people can’t begin to think about it and that’s why art is powerful’
A worker in the building told WSVN: ‘This is disgusting. This is disrespectful, and people just don’t understand it.’
The New Times reports that initial reactions to the piece ranged from it being called ‘disgusting’ to ‘patriotic’.
Lynn received her undergraduate degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and her Master’s in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in California.
The University of Miami is located in Coral Gables. It has an off-campus gallery (pictured) in Wynwood, a Miami neighborhood known for its vibrant art scene
Her artist’s statement, per her website, reads: ‘This has always been the work of art: to inspire the senses — to make the body feel — without necessarily direct experience, through signs, colors, sounds, movement, and so on.
‘At its highest, the experience and the making of art are identical.
‘Accordingly, my work is usually interactive and kinetic in nature.
‘I strive to make pieces in which the viewer interface is both the form and function of the piece.
‘I want people to remember themselves, in much the same way that babies discover their fingers.
‘When my work is successful, the piece is completed by the viewer-participant and she/he continues her/his journey more aware and delighted in being a body.’