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Artist Kate Kretz was banned from Facebook for the photos of her work she posted on the social network. Kretz’ “MAGA Hat Collection,” which includes the “Hate Hat,” violated Facebook’s community standards, it said.
Kretz deconstructed red Donald Trump Make America Great Again caps creating a Klan hood and a swastika emblazoned armband. She has three more pieces in the collection coming soon, she said.
In a Medium article, Kertz wrote that she has ripped apart the hats and then sewn “them back together into traditional symbols of hatred.” She said her the “works are meant to both call out wearers who claim the hats to be innocuous, and to sound the alarm that history is repeating itself.”
She appealed the Facebook ban.
Some may be offended by Kretz’s work. Images of her work follow.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Kretz Was Banned From Facebook & Instagram Also Removed Images of Her ‘Hate Hats’
Kretz posted her MAGA Hat series on Facebook in March. She said the posts “received an overwhelmingly positive response with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.” She said a minority was “offended by their cursory look at the swastika,” and the overall initial reaction to the shocking pieces was, “WTF?,” but that “they loved the piece even more when they saw what it actually was.”
She said one of the “Hate Hats” sold to a prominent collector within days.”
But earlier this month, Facebook removed the posts for violating its “community standards.”
She appealed saying it was art, “…and (like political cartoons) they included the offensive symbol to make a point about it.”
She said she “later re-posted the images with prominent text photoshopped onto them, explaining that they were artworks …”
She said “Facebook responded to my protest by removing even more images. On the morning of Thursday, May 9th, I found that my account had been disabled.”
2. Kretz Calls Her Work ‘Provocative.’ Anti-Trump & Anti-Gun Works Are Among Those That She Says Calls Out the Injustices She Sees, Features Trump in Many Works
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Kretz says that the “only ‘official’ MAGA hat” she used, the others were knock-offs, she wrote and said the official hat put “money in Trump’s pocket …was ripped apart strand by strand, all the way down to individual threads.”
The piece is entitled, “Hate Hat II, Dismantled: The Disease That Thought It Was The Cure.”
Kretz said eight years ago, she took her art from “personal to the political.”
“I was thinking about the world my newborn daughter would grow up in. I was overwhelmed by the daily news and was starting to pick up on cultural rumblings all around me that were quite unsettling: that drove me to research and creation at an unprecedented, feverish pitch that continues to this day. My practice is now devoted to calling out injustices against disparate parts of our community, investigating overlaps to suggest that, although the victims may change, the perpetrators are often the same,” she wrote on Medium. “I have named the ongoing series “#bullyculture”, because I believe that the U.S. cultivates aggression and entitlement in a myriad of ways, both overt and subtle. Much of the work in this series foreshadowed both the 2016 election and the #metoo movement by several years.”
Her website gallery include series works “#bullyculture,” “Lie Hole,” and “Gunlickers.”
3. Since Being Thrown Off Facebook, Kretz Has Received A Lot of Support, But Not From Everyone
“This is what I see when I see MAGA hats. Thank you artist Kate Kretz @kkretz4art for articulating what was on the tip of my tongue. The MAGA hat feels like a modern Klan hood because the appeal behind it is wrapped up in white victimhood and racist repression.”
Kretz said it’s possible that the Facebook ban came after “trolls got together to remove my work through orchestrated complaints…”
“Facebook banned Kate Kretz’s account for posting this photo which is completely backwards because showing racism for what it is is not racism. Show support for @kkretz4art’s powerful piece by RTing. I love how FB is quick to ban her but they struggle with what to do with frogs,” Twitter user Toure, a book editor and host of the Toure Show podcast, wrote.
4. Kretz, Who Studied at the Sorbonne, Has a Resume That Runs 25 Pages
Kretz received her bachelors of fine arts at Binghamton University and her master’s of fine arts at the University of Georgia. She studied at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France and has scores of honors, awards, fellowships,residencies and has been the recipient of arts grants. She has work in “a few important collections,” and been in museum shows across the country and abroad.
She says she’s, “…one of those artists who’s been plugging away in the studio for the past thirty years. Part of the Art World’s middle tier, I am perpetually hovering on the edge of my ‘big break’, but I no longer hold my breath in wait for it,” she wrote on Medium.
“I hope to move up a few more rungs on the art world ladder before I die, but that’s far less important to me than consistently making work I am proud of.”
5. A Change.org Petition Calling on Facebook to Reinstate Kretz is Gaining Traction
A petition on Change.org demanding that Facebook reinstate Kretz has picked up steam.
“Kate Kretz was banned on Facebook for her Artwork using MANGA hats. Facebook decided she was violating community standards with Hate Speech. That is ironic. It is important for Artists who we agree or disagree with to be able to show their work. Many make their living via social media platforms. Not only is this an issue of artistic freedom but of livelihood. ”