East Tennessee State University has cancelled an annual juried exhibition of politically themed art at the school’s Reece Museum. The show, “The Fletcher Exhibit of Social and Politically Engaged Art,” was first held in 2013 in honor of ETSU art student Fletcher Dyer, who died in a motorcycle accident in Johnson City in 2009, when he was a senior at the university.
As reported in Hyperallergic, the cancellation of the 2025 iteration of “The Fletcher Exhibit” is the result of ongoing backlash from the ETSU chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative youth movement founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10, as well as Republican officials in Tennessee.
Last year’s exhibition featured some 60 artworks chosen by a jury; several works criticized conservative figures, among them Kirk, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Meaghan Dee, a graphic designer and a professor at Virginia Tech, was one of the jurors for the 2024 exhibition. She shared that the two pieces from the controversial show that have most resonated with her over the past year are Merrill Smith Jr.’s painted wood sculpture Partisanship, which depicts a all-white American flag, the missing colors represented by large red and blue droplets, and Keith Kitz’s taped together peace sign, Piece Together.
Hyperallergic spoke with several of Dyer’s family members. Fletcher’s mother Barb said that the university told her that its “goals no longer coincided with our goals,” but refused to send any explanations in writing. His sister Carrie, who also attended ETSU, said “There’s a level of feeling betrayed by an entity that should have supported us, and Fletcher, and freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”
In additional to the long running exhibition, Dyer’s family has endowed a scholarship at the university, given to a graphic design students “who show an interest in social and political statement based art and design work,” according to the application materials. Dyer’s student work was, of course, political in nature. His website shows several works referencing political violence, for example, a grenade wrapped in an American flag and a bullet sculpture titled Genocide of Darfur.