Anyone who has spent a moment with 40-year-old Raj Bunnag knows that one does not simply spend a moment with him. Before one realizes it, he’s taken them down a history lesson-slash-rabbit hole of the pervasiveness of white supremacy in our political and cultural institutions.
His art is very much a reflection of those rants — sprawling, gruesome, meticulously detailed black and white linocut prints that depict issues like racism, the war on drugs, and policing. Linocut is a type of printmaking that involves carving an image onto linoleum, then inking the raised portions of the linoleum and pressing them onto paper or fabric.
“They’re what I consider the monsters that made America,” Bunnag said. “The Americas were built with terrorism and we glance over that terrorism. I made these monsters larger than life because of my history of doing street art or graffiti when I was a kid, but also like the inability to walk by a six-foot, nine-foot monster without noticing it.”
Inside his mostly dark, cluttered garage studio in Durham, he hung on a clothesline a few of the prints he hoped to display this year.
“You can walk by a print that’s seven-by-five (feet) in a frame,” Bunnag said. “And it could be the most beautiful print in the world. But when you are walking by a six-foot gunman or a nine-foot pig, monster fascist pig, these things that are taking up space, that are in your face, that are making you uncomfortable. That’s the purpose of this art, to make you uncomfortable. These are things that most people of color deal with or see on a daily basis.”
The former CAM Raleigh curator, however, has run into some obstacles with showing his work this year. In the fall of 2024, he was invited by a curator to show one of his pieces at an exhibition the North Carolina Museum of Art plans to open in August this year. Around the same time, Craven Allen Gallery, a private gallery in Durham, reached out to offer him a solo show.
But then, on Jan. 29, Bunnag received an email from the NCMA exhibit organizer who invited him to be a part of the exhibition, saying that they would not include Bunnag’s piece.
“Unfortunately it seems like our director is wary of overt/explicit political criticism,” the organizer said in a chain of emails Bunnag forwarded to WUNC. “I’m so disappointed because your work was central to the show and provided such important sociopolitical context. Frankly I'm pissed.”
WUNC attempted to reach the exhibit organizer for further comment, but did not receive a return email.
The work that would have been displayed is a print called “Emancipation Incarceration,” which Bunnag described as a representation of the modern prison system and its roots in the history of enslavement in America.
“In this print, you have the cityscape in the back,” Bunnag explained. “The cityscape is made up of buildings in the most policed cities in the U.S. The monster itself is a giant skeletal, multi-headed, white wig-wearing beast that is pulling itself through the city. Its belly is distended and the guts are hanging out. There are white supremacists all over the machine as it's marching through the town. In the centerpiece of the machine, there’s Lady Justice with a sword stick shoved down her throat and the scales are unbalanced and the leering suits and skulls are kind of groping and fondling her as she’s being crucified on a cross.”
While he’s applied for and been turned down from many shows, he said he’d never been rejected quite in the manner that NCMA did with him earlier this year. Bunnag said that a few museum staff even encouraged him to file a report to the National Coalition Against Censorship. When he did, he said he received a response from the organization’s director that said that what he experienced was an example of proto-censorship, or something that could build up to censorship. Bunnag also posted on social media about his experiences.
A few weeks later, in mid-February, Bunnag met with the owner of Craven Allen Gallery. In emails leading up to the visit, he expected his solo show to proceed as planned. But Bunnag said that when he showed them his prints, the owner told him they couldn’t show his prints and that they didn’t know what the ramifications would be of exhibiting work that is critical of right-wing politicians.
“It messed me up,” Bunnag said. “Losing exhibitions like that, you know, that’s how I make money. It was very debilitating. It was just like, Oh god, I have nothing to do now. What am I building work for? Are these the last shows I’m going to get? Is this going to be what happens during this presidency?”
He didn’t spend very long though in that mentality.
“What it’s done for me is showed me that I’m saying the right things because it is making places like these uncomfortable,” Bunnag said. “Especially when they try to pretend they are so progressive, that they are welcoming of everyone.”
Hong-An Truong, director of UNC’s graduate studies in studio art and one of Bunnag’s former professors, said she was extremely disappointed to hear about the removal of his work from the NCMA show.
“I’m kind of shocked, to be honest,” Truong said. “The curators I’ve worked with (at NCMA) are really ethical and really ive of artists. I think the implications are huge. If institutions are not willing or able to find it within themselves to stand up for artists who create work that speaks truth to power, they are already obeying fascist rule without being told what to do. For an art institution like NCMA, which is our preeminent state institution, to only see the threat in front of them, which is the potential to lose federal or state funding, is completely shortsighted and unethical.”
A spokesperson for NCMA emailed WUNC with a statement, “There are numerous considerations that go into the selection of artists and artworks for exhibitions, and we have no additional comment.” WUNC also ed Craven Allen Gallery. A staffer who answered the phone said they would the message along to owners, who did not respond by publication.
The piece Bunnag planned to show at NCMA is a part of a series he started when he was a student at UNC-Chapel Hill’s highly selective studio art graduate program.
“This work really upset my white professors,” said Bunnag. “Or they wouldn’t get it. Or they’d be like, 'Oh, you should use humor to talk about this or to address these things.' I think using humor to dismantle white supremacy is b—s—t because I don’t see anything funny about it. Like, at all.”
Since getting his degree, Bunnag was successful in showing his work in multiple spaces across North Carolina, including in 2023 at the North Carolina Museum of Art Winston-Salem, formerly known as the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts.
“It messed me up. Losing exhibitions like that, you know, that’s how I make money. It was very debilitating. It was just like, Oh god, I have nothing to do now. What am I building work for? Are these the last shows I’m going to get? Is this going to be what happens during this presidency?” — Durham artist Raj Bunnag
Bunnag said that he’s received a lot of from other folks in the art scene, including Jonh Blanco, the manager at 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, which has displayed Bunnag’s linocut prints along its Main Street windows since last fall. After Bunnag shared what happened at NCMA, Blanco extended the display through July. Bunnag also plans to show his work later this summer at the Scrap Exchange in Durham.
“What’s making itself clear is I need to stop trying to get (a seat) at that table,” Bunnag said. “They don’t want me at that table. Or they only wanted me so they could be like look, we got an Asian guy here. What I’ve learned now is I have to set the path or set the to which I’m exhibiting work, or just be more self-reliant as opposed to being like dependent on these institutions. They only want sellable, friendly stuff.”
If you are an artist in North Carolina experiencing a similar situation, we’d like to hear from you. Please reach out to Eli Chen at [email protected].
