Charles Krafft

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Charles Wing Krafft (September 19, 1947 – June 12, 2020) was an American painter and ceramicist whose later work incorporated traditional ceramic decorative styles to produce works commemorating modern disasters. In 1998, he was called "the dark angel of Seattle art" by the art critic of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.[1] In early 2013 it was revealed that he participated in white nationalist and Holocaust denial websites, which led to a re-evaluation of his artwork.

Early life

Charles Krafft was born in Seattle in 1947, and grew up near the Seattle Art Museum, which he frequented, leading to his initial interest in art. In his teenage years, he became interested in the writings of Jack Kerouac and the artwork of Von Dutch, a prominent custom car designer, gunsmith and explosives specialist. He later became fascinated by the art of Morris Graves and the Northwest School. He has named Von Dutch and Graves as his "greatest inspirations". He also spent time with Guy Anderson, also of the Northwest School.[2] He soon moved into a cabin in an artists' commune in Fishtown, near La Conner, Washington,[3] where he lived for 12 years. Initially he went there to attempt to learn to meditate. Although this failed, he first began painting there.[2]

Career

Eventually returning to

guns.[1]

Since 1991, Krafft's work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the

Laibach and its associated arts collective, Neue Slowenische Kunst, on their "Occupied Europe: NATO" tour in Yugoslavia, where the Bosnian War was just ending.[5] He was appointed the tour's official photographer, and was present for their historic concert in Sarajevo in December 1995, when the city was still under siege by the Serbs. This experience had a profound effect on Krafft.[1] Krafft has continued to collaborate with Laibach and NSK, and he has contributed to the Porcelain War Museum project in Slovenia.[6]

In 1999, Krafft served a residency at the

Kohler Company,[7] during which he developed a technique utilizing bone in ceramics which he termed Spone, after the English potter Josiah Spode, who was the inventor of bone china. Spode's technique, however, involved cow bone; Krafft instead substituted human bone, which he had obtained from the wife of a deceased friend who had requested him to make something out of the remains. Since then, Krafft has manufactured a number of funerary memorial porcelain artworks crafted from human cremains.[1]

In Charles Krafft's Villa Delirium, a book dedicated to his work, Krafft claims that he "prefers to be in the company of criminals, undertakers and blue-haired grannies".[8]

White nationalism revelations

In February 2013, an article was published in the alternative newsweekly The Stranger which detailed Krafft's participation on

Second World War, had always been perceived as "darkly ironic". Some, such as Adam Parfrey of Feral House, came to his defense,[10] while The Globe and Mail in Toronto claimed that Krafft's personal beliefs should not be allowed to affect perceptions of his art.[11] In March 2013 a piece in The New Yorker analyzed the development of Krafft's views and speculated about their relationship to his art.[12]
In 2015 Charles Krafft created a ceramic bust of the horror/science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft.[13] The bust of Lovecraft looks similar to Krafft's earlier busts of Adolf Hitler (as a teapot) and Charles Manson.[14] Krafft responded to the reporting about his beliefs through a combination of confirming them, producing fictional examples in his "defense", and bemoaning that the public was kind to "Jewish sensitivities" and didn't offer the same support to Nazi supporters like himself. With the legitimate art world cutting all ties with him after 2013, Krafft spent several years working on explicitly white nationalist and racist artwork until his debilitating illness and, a few years later, his death.

Death

Krafft was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer in 2018. He died of his illness on June 12, 2020.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Cruickshank, Douglas. "Been there, smashed that" Archived December 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, N.p., 2002. Web.
  2. ^ a b "Charles Krafft". Documentary video, July 28, 2007. YouTube
  3. ^ Krafft, Charles. "Villa Delirium Delft Works". '"Ceramics Monthly, September 1998, pp. 68–70. Print
  4. ^ "Charles Krafft." 2007 video.
  5. ^ a b Reid, Larry. "Charles Krafft: Controversial American Ceramicist". Ceramics Today.
  6. ^ "Villa Delirium Delft Works". Charles Krafft (ed.). N.p., 2002. Web. October 7, 2009
  7. ^ "About". Charles Krafft | Villa Delirium Delft Works.
  8. ^ McGee, Mike; Reid, Larry (2002). Preface. Charles Krafft's Villa Delirium. Last Gasp. p. 11.
  9. ^ Graves, Jen (February 13, 2013). "Charles Krafft Is a White Nationalist Who Believes the Holocaust Is a Deliberately Exaggerated Myth". The Stranger.
  10. ^ Parfrey, Adam (2013-02-15). "Charlie lost control of his Facebook page". Feral House. Archived from the original on 2017-09-26. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  11. ^ Smith, Russell (2013-02-27). "Monstrous Art or Art about a Monster". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 2017-01-06. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
  12. ^ Arons, Rachel (2013-03-23). "Charles Krafft and the Conundrum of Nazi Art". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 2019-11-09. Retrieved 2019-11-08.
  13. ^ "Charles Krafft creates Lovecraft Bust". hyperallergic.com. 2015-11-16.
  14. ^ "Vice Interview with Charles Krafft". Vice. 2013-03-19. Archived from the original on 2019-12-29. Retrieved 2019-11-07.
  15. ^ "Obituary". charleskrafft.com. Archived from the original on 24 June 2020.
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