[News] Artist Plans to Lynch Confederate Flag

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Claude,

I found this in my e-mail this morning & thought I'd pass it along. I hope 
you will distribute it to the FA list. Please note that the article has 
included e-mail addresses for Gettysburg College & the artist, John Sims. I 
have added an e-mail address for gallery director Molly Hutton.

As the article indicates, a great deal of pressure is coming to bear 
against all concerned to cancel the show. An outpouring of support may help 
ensure it goes forward.

arawn

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Artist Plans to Lynch Confederate Flag

By MARK SCOLFORO
.c The Associated Press

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Confederate flag as interpreted by artist John 
Sims is pink and purple, hung by a noose or colored in the red, black and 
green of black nationalism.

But it is the Florida man's plan to hold a mock lynching of a Confederate 
flag when his exhibition opens at a Gettysburg College art gallery early 
next month that has triggered a campaign to cancel the show.

Sims describes his work as an examination of the power of symbols. In his 
case, passion about the flag has generated dozens of e-mail and phone 
complaints to the school, the borough and the artist himself.

Some have been signed and angry, others anonymous and threatening, their 
biggest issue is the mock hanging he plans on a 13-foot-high gallows 
outside Schmucker Art Gallery.

``Things like, I'm the one who should be hanging - stuff like that,'' said 
the 36-year-old artist and teacher.

Web sites devoted to the flag are buzzing with outrage and the local 
chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans obtained permission for a 
protest vigil on national-park property that borders campus.

The fervor is in full force, but ``Recoloration Proclamation: The 
Gettysburg Redress'' doesn't open until Sept. 3. Besides the flags, the 
show will also include jazz-style alternative recordings of ``Dixie,'' 
Sims' rewriting of the Gettysburg Address and a speech on nationalism and 
dissent in contemporary art by Harvard University professor Gwendolyn 
DuBois Shaw.

``The point of the exhibit is the flag has taken on a set of meanings, that 
the artist is concerned with the contemporary state of the Confederate flag 
as a symbol,'' said gallery director Molly S. Hutton. ``The nature of 
exhibition is it's controversial - we expected some controversy.''

The backlash over Sims' work already has led to a security-planning meeting 
Monday between the college president and borough officials.

``We haven't had any open threats of any kind, but we feel that we have to 
be prepared,'' Mayor William E. Troxell said.

Jim Palmisano, commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans group in 
Gettysburg, said he wishes the school would cancel the exhibition, calling 
the mock lynching tasteless and insulting.

``I can't think of a more offensive thing that he could do,'' said 
Palmisano. He estimated that 80 to 100 people will attend the vigil to 
voice their displeasure.

Sims, a black man who once displayed one of his colorized Confederate flags 
at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Florida, called Gettysburg ``the perfect place'' 
to launch a project he describes as ``a battle of symbols.''

``What's the line between symbols that can be healthy and symbols that can 
be toxic?'' he said.

As the scene of a storied 1863 battle that swung the tide of the Civil War, 
battle memorabilia is everywhere in Gettysburg, a central Pennsylvania town 
about 10 miles north of the Maryland border. Merchants do a brisk business 
in items featuring the Confederacy's various flags, most commonly its 
square battle flag.

On the Net:

Gettysburg College: www.gettysburg.edu
mhutton at gettysburg.edu
John Sims: www.johnsimsprojects.com </blockquote></x-html>

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