Flag Flying: Artists Are Using the Symbolic Medium to Raise Political and Social Issues
WHAT TO THE AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST is the Fourth of July? Is it consumed by fireworks and barbecue or grounded, perhaps, in the words of Frederick Douglass? On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a historic address in Rochester, N.Y., at an event commemorating the Declaration of Independence. He said in part: What, to the...
LaToya Ruby Frazier and Nari Ward Among 16 Artists Participating in Creative Time’s Political ‘Pledges of Allegiance’
FLAGS HAVE PROVEN to be a powerful medium in contemporary art, from David Hammons’s “African American Flag” (1990), which sold at Phillips auction for more than $2 million, to Dread Scott’s “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday” (2015) displayed last summer at Jack Shainman Gallery, and Nu Barreto’s “Desunited States of Africa” (2010)...
