September 13, 2009 7:09pm Thank you, Myron, for this photo. Back in February of 1989, a student at the Art Institute of Chicago by the name of "Dread" Scott Tyler draped the American flag across the floor for a piece titled "What Is The Proper Way To Display A U.S. Flag?" The piece consisted of a podium with a notebook for viewers to express how they felt about the exhibit. However, the podium was set upon a flag laid on the floor, and the only way you could express your views were to step on the flag.
People were actually arrested when they walked on the flag to exercise their freedom of speech by writing in the book. It was a brilliant conundrum of art and politics, but then isn't all art really political?
I remember going to see it. The school stood by the student even though the federal funding was cut from $70,000 to $1 and many benefactors pulled donations in anger. Later, the school would not allow him to display the piece at his MFA thesis exhibition.
I, too am a veteran. But I never saw my service as a card to be played against the rights of other citizens. Your art is everything anyone says or thinks about it. As for me, you have my profound appreciation and respect. Hear, Hear.
January 27, 2009 1:33pm I don't mean to make a comment on the idea that this is degrading the flag because there is a nude lady on it or for any other reason but that it does hit a sensitive spot. I was a sergeant in the Army...the flag was honored in a way I have never seen honored before while I was in the service. It was given to the mothers and wives and husbands of fallen soldiers. It was placed on thousands of coffins. It was lowered in honor for soldiers who died doing what they were trained to do for this country. A soldier looks at a flag different....they see what they are willing to die for and those who have died for their country. And there was a rule we all understood...that the American flag will never touch the ground, NEVER. It is a golden rule. And what I see here is a beautiful picture but I gasp as well for that flag is on the ground.
May 22, 2008 5:47am I would not go so far as to presume myself to be an arbiter of cultural appropriateness, nor would I think that I had earned any special license to execute acts of national disloyalty. On the other hand, I don't think that I am without 'some' sensitivity to as to what the parameters of loyalty might be; nor, do I believe for one moment that I have no background in the discussion of acceptable expression of patriotism, or in the demonstration of 'freedom of expression', itself. For, if the truth be known, I 'have' served as a Marine Corps Officer, an infantry platoon commander, during the Viet Nam era. And, a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, with another 60 semester units in graduate school, coupled with five years of teaching government...what humility could I have come to acquire regarding the many possible ways there are to honor what we risk our lives to defend? I reject your claim, outright, that I have done anything but state my love for beauty and, specifically, American beauty, the land, and its womanhood, and that I have done so in anything but a creative way. Lastly, I submit that you 'should' acknowledge your support for my expression of our most cherished freedom, i.e., 'freedom of expression'. Personally, you may not feel comfortable about 'my love' for my country, but you cannot extract anything negative from viewing this image, nothing. If you feel otherwise, I believe it evidences either an ignorance about what it means to be a free citizen in a free republic, and/or, your own twisted sense of cultural judgment. I made a picture of three things I love--the American earth, the flag, and a beautiful woman--and you cannot interpret anything negative in the assemblage thereof, nor has anyone else, but you, done so, in the thirty-five years I have been showing this photograph. I leave your statement and mine here, with the photograph, to demonstrate my confidence in the veracity of my words.
May 13, 2008 4:42pm Do you know what you just did?
THe message here is profound,
as an American I believe it is our duty to demonstrate leadership toward environmental change, placing the flag on the ground denotes the laziness of our government as issues are ignored... the beautiful form of the woman oppresses the politics and amplifies the the vitality with the innocence of her pose and nudity. Wonderfully presented!
