Flags!

• Flags have been used in contemporary art to convey a range of messages, from political statements to
cultural identity. According to a Four Corners Books article, the American flag has been a recurring
trope in art since Jasper Johns recreated it in 1954. Depicting the flag at that point was a huge
conceptual statement, exuding a sense of political criticality that questioned its meaning and the line
between representation and object. Since then, artists such as David Hammons, Faith Ringgold, Mark
Flood, and Barbara Kruger have used the flag to highlight issues around protest politics, race,
queerness, gender, and the general failure of the American dream.
• Flags have been used throughout history as forms of international propaganda and symbolic
ownership. It is not surprising that artists are reworking them in the name of decolonization. Larry
Achiampong’s
Pan African Flag For The Relic Travellers (Ascension) manifested as a series of flags but also as a pe
rformance, audio, moving image, and more
1
.
• Flags have also been used to represent cultural identity. For example, the Contemporary Art Stavanger
website suggests that flags have stood as simple, striking representations of people groups, directives,
and socio-political movements. The recognizable image of flags and their graphic quality render them
an attractive medium for artists.
In recent years, many international artists have used the medium of the
flag as a space to display and conceive different types of imagery. At
times these are playful, such as Jeremy Deller’s yellow smiley face flag,
a collaboration with graphic designer Fraser Muggeridge which hung
above London’s Somerset House in honour of the 500 th anniversary of
Thomas More’s Utopia. The flag was a nod to the culture of acid house
music which has been an ongoing focus for Deller in an examination of
the relationship between class and culture in contemporary Britain. In
other cases, such as Adam Pendleton’s
Black Dada Flag (Black Lives Matter) the political context and use of
flags is more immediately present.
African
American
Flag
- David
Hammonds
1990
 Make America nice terrible
happy racist friendly--- Again
by GANZEER
Ganzeer (Egyptian Arabic: ‫ جنزير‬pronounced [ɡæn
ˈziːɾ], "chain") (born 1982 in Giza[2]) is the
pseudonym used by an Egyptian artist who has
gained mainstream fame in Egypt and
internationally following the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution
 <
Sara Rahbar: flag 17, unstable,
you disappear in the distance,
2008

>
Sara Rahbar: Glorious Haze,
2012
Larry Achiampong:
Pan African Flag
For The Relic
Travellers’ Alliance
(Ascension), 2017
Jasper Johns

Flag is an encaustic
painting by the American
artist Jasper Johns. It was
created in 1954-1955,
when Johns was 24, two
years after he was
discharged from the US
Army. This painting was
the first of many works
that Johns made, as he
said, that were inspired by
a dream of the U.S. flag in
1954. It is arguably the
painting for which Johns is
best known.[citation
needed] It is held in the
Museum of Modern Art,
in New York