Crop artists react after State Fair removes anti-Trump ‘8647’ piece due to harassment
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
The Minnesota State Fair has removed an artwork from the Crop Art Competition after the artist requested it be removed due to harassment and doxxing.
The piece in question said “8647,” which is a reference to the 47th President Donald Trump and has mixed meanings; the phrase “86” is commonly used in bars and restaurants when a menu item is no longer available or a patron is kicked out; others see it as a threat to kill someone. Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted over posting a photo saying “8647.”
The State Fair confirmed it “removed the artwork at the request of the artist,” who did not respond to a request for comment as of Monday evening.
“The artist found out that her name was being spread around online,” said crop artist Ike Whiting, who is volunteering at the crop art exhibition this year and said he does not know the artist personally but heard information through other crop artists. “Then it was picked up by some far-right media outlets, and some doxxing began, harassment began. As far as I know, people were near her house, near her home, and so she made the decision to ask the fair if they would take her piece down because of the threats.”
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Whiting is referring in part to a Facebook and X post made by Alpha News on Aug. 28. After the posts, people on social media began researching the artist, posting her employer, saying they were contacting her employer, and at least one person posted her alleged photo, phone number and address. Doxxing is publicly posting someone’s private information as a means of punishment.
Marta Shore, the superintendent of crop art and scarecrows, took the artwork down on Aug. 30. Shore declined an interview as of Monday night.
“The track record of the fair is that every piece that's submitted is displayed unless it directly violates a couple primary rules,” Whiting said. The fair’s crop art rulebook states reasons for disqualification include profanity, advertising a business and the artist using an alias or pseudonym to submit. All crop art is hung with the name of the artist next to it.
Removal may be first of its kind for State Fair
Whiting and other crop artists MPR News spoke to say this is likely an unprecedented situation for the Crop Art Competition: An artist requesting their artwork be removed due to harassment and threats.
Whiting recalled one time a piece was removed due to audience complaints. In 2015, crop artist Nick Rindo created a portrait of Bill Cosby using rapeseed (also known as canola), a commentary on the multiple sexual assault allegations made against the comedian.
Longtime crop artist Cathy Camper said the State Fair removed one of her crop artworks after viewer complaints in 2001 that depicted a nude devil woman, even though it won a ribbon.
“Apparently people complained, and now they have a rule about no nudity,” Camper said.
Camper said she’s not entirely surprised about the reaction to the “8647” piece.
“I think that artwork has always provoked people, and you know you can go back to any famous artist, and art has been banned, art has been challenged, it's been called ugly,” said Camper, who has been making crop art since 1989. “For a lot of artists, that's part of doing art.”
Camper, who is Arab American, has long been making portraits of people of color that she admires, from Malcolm X to Julio Torres. She said she was one of the first to do this when crop art was still “staid and white.”
In 2015, Camper submitted to the fair a portrait of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. Camper posted an image of the artwork to social media and called Omar “exemplary for being an immigrant and in one generation making it to Congress.”
Camper, who now lives in Portland, Ore., said hundreds to thousands of people commented on the post saying, “How dare you call her a hero?” and then “repeating all these myths about her and slander.”
Camper added: “As far as I know, there wasn't anything really threatening. It was mostly really patronizing.”
Artist says she is also facing harassment for crop art submission this year
Another artist in this year’s crop art competition said she is also facing harassment.
This year, artist Bethany Nagan submitted a piece of crop art to the fair for the first time. She recreated “Liberty Leading the People,” a famous 19th-century political painting by Eugène Delacroix about revolution. For her piece, Nagan added a rebel loon and protest signs referencing Operation Metro Surge.
“And then I started to see some things online about me, and that was also kind of a bit alarming because I'm a pretty non-public person,” Nagan said. Nagan said people were sharing a photo of her on X and calling crop artists “crazy” and “insane.”
“One person, you know, kind of anywhere he could was spreading my face,” Nagan said. She said the online chatter about her seems to have died down now.
Nagan said while these responses are concerning, she will keep making crop art.
“Art in and of itself is inherently political, and crop art is inherently silly,” Nagan said. “When you bring those two things together, it just catches me in a place where I'm like, this is exactly the forum that I want to engage in where it's serious things in an unserious way.”
She said she’s already brainstorming her 2027 submission.
“I've never been surrounded by so many people who are so loving and encouraging,” Nagan of the crop art community.
‘The whole point here is that everyone can express themselves’
Over the decades, crop art has evolved into an art form that often comments on politics and current events. So, Ike Whiting said there was no surprise that those topics would serve as inspiration this year.
Whiting himself entered five pieces this year that touch on topics including ICE, the rebel loon and the Cedar-Riverside Plaza apartments in Minneapolis, which are home to many Somali Americans, a community that “has certainly been seeing their fair share of attacks from the administration.” That one won a blue ribbon.
He points to other political pieces, too. A piece that says “Fauci Lied” hangs right below where “8647” used to. Another one says “1-800-Learing Center,” referencing Somali-owned daycare centers that were subject to a viral video last winter alleging fraud. Minnesota investigators later said the child care centers were operating as expected.
“The whole point here is that everyone can express themselves,” Whiting said. “It doesn't matter what your political beliefs are. You can make your statement.”
What does concern Whiting is the intensity of the backlash to ”8647” and some other artworks this year.
“The thing that I am surprised about is the extremes to which people are responding to that in a personal attacking way,” Whiting said. “That to me goes way beyond the line of ‘I disagree with this.’ It's taking it into much further aggressive territory that we should not be standing for as artists, and the fair should not be standing for that.”
