The controversy surrounding Bill Cosby has now spilled over into the Minnesota State Fair. A portrait of Cosby made out of canola seeds, also known as rapeseed, has been pulled down after only one day due to visitor complaints. Software designer Nick Rindo, 37, told the Pioneer Press, “The point was just to see, would there be outrage? Would there be people talking about it? Would it even get through?”
It got through, for a little while:
The fair’s crop art superintendent, Ron Kelsey, approved the portrait but put tape over the word “rapeseed” on the work’s label, because, in his words, “We call everything canola in this country.”
Rindo wasn’t sure that helped — “now it looks like I just painted a portrait of Bill Cosby with canola seeds,” he said, which isn’t the message he hoped to send. […] He said he was told at least one complainant accused the exhibit of being “pro-rape.”
You haven’t arrived as an artist until somebody accuses you of the exact opposite of what you were saying.
Rindo doesn’t seem bothered by the censorship. He’s asked people (via Facebook) not to send any nasty comments to Kelsey, and he told the Pioneer Press the pulling down of the portrait may be “the best possible scenario. Up for a day and then taken down.”
Rindo still has one other artwork on display at the fair… this seed portrait of Leonard Nimoy as Spock:
(Via Pioneer Press and Nick Rindo)