New Bedford artist's work featured in show in Italy among prominent artists, photographers

Don Wilkinson
·4 min read

Artist Keith Francis received an unexpected email recently from a stranger in Italy. It came from Stefano Reia, director and curator of KR8TE, an organization in Italy devoted to establishing a collection of varied artworks that focuses on a particular topic of global significance.

One of his artworks, a screen printed and hand sewn corrupted version of an American flag, titled “Welcome!” had been included in an exhibition called “American Beauty” at the Centro Culturale Altinate in Padova, Italy, much to his surprise.

Francis, who lives in New Bedford and teaches graphic design at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, had sold the work, which he had completed in 2016, to an anonymous collector in Monfalcone, Italy.

“Welcome!” features 16 American flags stitched together into a 44-inch-by-66-inch rectangle. In the lower half of each flag is bold text that targets a demonized group with an angry message that is part of our collective history. NO MUSLIMS. NO IRISH. NO COLORED. NO CHINESE. NO MEXICANS. NO JEWS. NO SLAVS. NO CATHOLICS. And so on and so on.

Artist Keith Francis
Artist Keith Francis

Francis is certainly not an advocate of any of those positions. But he bravely refuses to pretend that those ugly sentiments were not (and still are not) part of the social, cultural and political fabric of our nation.

In a statement displayed with his work it is noted that it “uncovers aspects of immigration marginalization that remained largely unknown to the mainstream public…the Statue of Liberty text reads: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…’

“This is a myth: the United States has always placed limits and marginalized or banned those ruled inadmissible based on race and religion.”

Or as Lou Reed sang on “Dirty Blvd.” on his 1989 album “New York:" “Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor- I’ll piss on ‘em. That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says. Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ‘em to death and get it over with and just dump ‘em on the dirty boulevard.”

"Welcome," by Keith Francis. A statement displayed with his work notes that it “uncovers aspects of immigration marginalization that remained largely unknown to the mainstream public…the Statue of Liberty text reads: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…’ This is a myth: the United States has always placed limits and marginalized or banned those ruled inadmissible based on race and religion.”

When Francis displayed “Welcome!” at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston when he was working on a graduate degree, he was ordered to take it down because it was “divisive.” That was a small-minded response.

What is divisive is congressmen that refuse to reunite children with the parents that they were separated from at the border. What is divisive is a southern governor and candidate for president that seeks to rewrite history. What is divisive is an Illinois landlord that stabs a 6-year-old Pakistani-American boy to death.

Francis knows that art is just not pretty flowers in a vase or a glowing sunset or the perfect nude. It’s also Manet’s 1867 “ Execution of Maximilian.” It’s also Picasso’s 1937 “Guernica.” It’s also Rockwell’s 1964 “The Problem We All Live With.” Art has to encompass all of life, not just the pretty and the safe. To only acknowledge the beautiful is to embrace a comforting lie.

A short list of some of Francis’s co-exhibitors in “American Beauty” includes Diane Arbus, Robert Longo, Keith Haring, Dorothea Lange, Annie Liebovitz, Vito Acconci, Henri Cartier Bresson, Andre Serrano, Andy Warhol, George Maciunas, Vik Muniz and Banksy. None of them pulled their punches. And they’re all fine company.

And there is a black-and-white image by photojournalist Stanley Forman from 1976. He was working for the Boston Herald-American at the time and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography when he captured the image of a white teenager attempting to impale a Black man with a flagpole, on which the red, white and blue were still attached.

It was at Boston City Hall during the time of the desegregation busing crisis. I was 15 then. I’m almost 50 years older now. Nothing much has changed.

I applaud Francis — and all the artists, dead and alive — who speak to truth, no matter how ugly it may be. And the fact that he’s a local boy surprised to find himself on a global platform makes it even sweeter.

Don Wilkinson is a columnist and reviewer for Coastin. His weekly Art Beat column gives his opinion on local art exhibits, artists and arts projects in the Fall River and New Bedford areas. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Keith Francis artwork at Centro Culturale Altinate in Padova, Italy