Kevin McGunnigle and his wife were strolling through Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory Art Center earlier this month when they were shocked to be confronted by an artist’s creations insulting assassinated conservative Charlie Kirk and praising Luigi Mangione, who is on trial in New York for the slaying of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The artist, M. Alexander Gray, works in woodblock prints.
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His anti-Kirk piece reads “Charlie Kirk was a piece of s—-.”
He also has a piece showing a masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with a sign taped on his back that reads “Trump’s little bitch boy.”
“I was offended,” Mr. McGunnigle told “Seen, Heard & Whispered.” “This to me crosses the line.”
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He said he wasn’t alone in finding it beyond tolerated expression, as a mother and daughter also passing by the display agreed it was “horrific.”
He expressed his displeasure to the city government, which operates the artist enclave, renting out space in the former weapons manufacturing plant on the shore of the Potomac River.
Mr. McGunnigle said he didn’t get a response from the city.
A spokesperson from the Torpedo Factory, as well as from the city, did not respond to a request for comment from “Seen, Heard & Whispered.”
Mr. Gray, the artist, said he often gets compliments about his work.
“Art is one of the few methods of resistance available to ordinary people who have no political power or influence,” he told “Seen, Heard & Whispered” in an email.
He says Mr. Mangione is a modern-day John Brown, inspired to strike back against “legally-sanctioned injustice,” and described ICE as “a far-right paramilitary masquerading as a government agency.”
“Artwork like mine is about defiance in a world where non-stop capitulation to Trumpism seems to be the norm, even from powerful people who have the means and resources to resist, but choose not to,” Mr. Gray said.
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