modern art notes on the use of the flag
At Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green is running a series of posts on the use of the American flag in contemporary art.
When I’ve thought of the flag in the last week or two, I’ve remembered a photograph taken by the Rocky Mountain News’ Todd Heisler and a series of photographs that The Memory Hole forced the Pentagon to release under the Freedom of Information Act. In each of these pictures jingoism is replaced with respect. These photographs and the way the flag is present in them don’t roust the dopamine of the rabid right. Instead they command our attention, our awe and our gratitude in a way a thousand lapel pins never will.
First up in the series (after Green) is Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art curator David Rubin on Sam Wiener’s Those Who Fail to Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It from 1970. Go read and see.