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Home > Art > American Flag Banner

American Flag Banner

American flag with security tags attached.
Close up of security tags attached to American flag and tassel.
A detail view of the American flag with security tags.
Close up of the security tags attached to an American flag.
American flag with security tags attached.
Close up of security tags attached to American flag and tassel.
A detail view of the American flag with security tags.
Close up of the security tags attached to an American flag.
Artist

Nari Ward

Date

2022

Medium

American flag

EAS security tags

hanging rod and tassels

Object Type

Sculpture

Dimensions

H- 5 x W- 3 ft. (152.4 x 91.4 cm)

Artist's Country of Birth

Jamaica

Collecting Area

Art by Immigrant Artists

Credit Line

The Vilcek Foundation

Accession Number

VF2022.02.01

Copyright

© Nari Ward

Tags
found objects sculpture
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Currently on view

American Flag Banner is on view in Nari Ward: Home of the Brave at the Vilcek Foundation from May 31, 2022 – March 24, 2023.

Plan your visit
American flag with security tags attached.
Close up of security tags attached to American flag and tassel.
A detail view of the American flag with security tags.
Close up of the security tags attached to an American flag.
American flag with security tags attached.
Close up of security tags attached to American flag and tassel.
A detail view of the American flag with security tags.
Close up of the security tags attached to an American flag.

About the Object

An American flag covered in 513 electronic security tags hangs from a gold rod flanked by tassels. Ward wrote of the work, “Like their use in safeguarding store inventory the security tags are intended to monitor and protect the flag. In this situation their aggressive use negates the Stars and Stripes transforming the American flag into a banner of fear, and capitulation. The work is intended as a cautionary specter for our times.”

 

Additional Information

In 2017, Ward created Breathing Flag, which combines references to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association flag with a Congolese Cosmogram, an African prayer symbol. Four years later, Ward made Say Can You See, an American flag covered in 6,000 security tags.

Ward was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of 12; the family settled in Brooklyn, New York. Ward has lived in the New York City area ever since, earning his BA at Hunter College and his MFA at Brooklyn College. He became a U.S. citizen in 2011. Ward received the Vilcek Prize in Fine Arts in 2017 for his body of found-object assemblage artwork that invites both public discourse and intimate dialogue on topics including race, poverty, and Black and Caribbean diasporic identities.

The Artist;
[Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA];

New York. Vilcek Foundation. Nari Ward: Home of the Brave. May 31, 2022-March 24, 2023.

Tags
found objects sculpture
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Related Objects

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Lazarus

2019 Nari Ward
Shoelaces installed on a wall forming the words tired, poor, refuse, huddled, yearning, homeless, wretched, tempest-tost

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Email: info@vilcek.org

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