Sunday 26 March 2017

#free kekistan or know your meme

There is an artist from Saint Petersburg calling herself Pepelangelo who is portraying the meme that’s become rather abused by being appropriated by the Alt-Right as a symbol of hate in oil on canvas.
Perhaps the artist is trying to salvage the character’s good name and innocence by putting him in the context of fine art before Dear Leader adopted it by sharing—during his campaign, which I suppose never ended—a parody of himself as the frog but I think that the associations are at least for the present inextricable. The hashtag in the title refers to the Ancient Egyptian amphibian god Kek and his homeland, followers who are in certain circles conflated with Pepe—but I’m sure that they wouldn’t tolerate such idolatry or much less hang it on their walls. These works are currently sold out but you can still peruse the growing gallery of Olga Vishnevski, should you be so motivated.