"Obscene & Iridescent"

In one of the sharpest of the Nichols and May nightclub skits, Elaine May does a spoof on a Tennessee Williams heroine who is said to be guilty of "drink, prostitution and puttin' on airs." Last week at the University of Mississippi, a young painter and art teacher was charged with obscenity, indecency and puttin' on art shows.

To Painter G. Ray Kerciu, 30, assistant professor of art at Ole Miss, the sprawling painting he called America the Beautiful expressed all the raw violence and redneck inhumanity of last September's integration crisis at the university. Kerciu had watched the riots from his office window, and for two weeks afterward found himself unable to lay brush to canvas. But he wanted to express the drama of this turning point of state history. Normally a quiet, representational landscapist, Kerciu adopted the style of Manhattan Artists Jasper Johns and Larry Rivers, who are fascinated by flags and labels. Kerciu painted a big Confederate flag and plastered it with the slogans of the riots: "Impeach JFK." "Would you want your sister to marry one?" "[Scratched-out word] the NAACP." He hung the painting in a one-man show at the university's Fine Arts Center.

University Provost Charles Noyes ordered America the Beautiful removed, along with five other paintings equally riotous in local color. Then an Ole Miss law student, Charles G. Blackwell, who belongs to three Citizens Councils and has an eye on a Democratic nomination for the state legislature, brought charges against Kerciu--desecration of the Confederate flag by "obscene and indescent [as the charge spelled it] words and phrases." Arrested by Oxford police, Kerciu posted a $500 bond, came out of jail to find that his associates on the traditionally timid Ole Miss faculty had rallied behind him and are planning to help him put up a hard fight at his trial early next month.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.