Thanks to Ann M for finding this in the NYT
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — The year is 2019, the place is the United States, and a black man walks into a foundry wanting to cast some bronze grenades.
This is how the American artist Ed Bereal, 82, recaps preparing for his first retrospective at the Whatcom Museum here.
Creating new work for his politically charged exhibition “WANTED: Ed Bereal for Disturbing the Peace” raised some eyebrows in this predominantly white coastal city 20 miles from Canada.
There was the foundry, Mr. Bereal said, where the staff was hesitant to serve him until a friend who happened to come in vouched for Mr. Bereal’s artistic intentions. And that was before Mr. Bereal had explained that the grenades would stand in as testicles in an installation about the apocalypse.
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Then there was the print shop. Mr. Bereal said that when the owner realized the images the staff were printing for him likened President Trump to the Antichrist, the cost of services quadrupled. Mr. Bereal found another printer.