Now in New Orleans I’ve been graciously invited to participate in a show that is loosely grouped around the topic of flags due to open mid December in Good Children Gallery. I’ve been thinking of statistics, of numbers and abstract facts. Mentioning a flag is always so loaded. Especially in the US. Especially everywhere.
I appreciate flags as fashion, on t-shirts, hats, shoes, bags. Tattoos? I love it when the potency of the meanings loose and we can just play with the patterns. Would one wear stars and stripes just for the graphical quality?
Ginger Spice rocked the Union Jack in the mid 90’s, yet I haven’t seen the equivalent ease of “wear” for the stars and stripes. That got me to wondering: is it all post 9/11 or maybe this big U.S. flag cult had existed before. What I was struck with most is the huge, enormous flags flown by car dealerships and malls. After just scratching the surface of the issue I discovered that there is a big flag fad here form way back. Heck, I had stood in school in Middle Village, Queens saluting the flag as a kid.
That reminds me: The other day Tim n I went to a school and we got there just in time for the salute to the flag. I haven’t recited those words for more two decades yet I stood there and recited the pledge word for word.
Anyway, I really got into this big flag research and it soon took me away from the US and to the Guinness Book of Word Records. The US has fallen off the record breaking flag in 2007 when a Philippine woman commissioned a 5.2 ton flag of Israel that was twice the size of the American “Superflag”. God spoke to Grace in thunder and lightning ordering her to make a flag of his people.
This all opened a very interesting subject where my main concern is not in the meaning of the flag but of the micro story behind it and it’s area and dimensions and how it was made. I am interested in the factual materiality of the flag, not it’s significance, symbolism or political history.
One of the most striking images of the monumental flags I have found with a light browse on the net is the one I posted above. It was at the time, a second largest flag in the world.
Somehow the nature in this photo both emphasizes the grandness of the flag and undermines it at the same time. The flag her is like a lobster bib for the mountain. In terms of fashion, its neutral colors work well with the red. I love the giant scale of the flag. Notice those dots – they are climbers who set the flag up!
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