大衛·海蒙

Jack Tilton Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1992

New York, Jack Tilton Gallery, Who's Ice is Colder?, October - December 1990 (edition number unknown)
New York, P.S. 1 Museum; Philadelphia, The Institute of Contemporary Art; and San Diego, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble, December 1990 - November 1991, pp. 72-73, illustrated in color (in installation at Jack Tilton Gallery and at P.S. 1 Museum) (edition number unknown) 
Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Being Modern: MoMA in Paris, October 2017 - March 2018 (another example)

Exh. Cat., New York, Triple Candie, David Hammons: The Unauthorized Retrospective, 2006, n.p., illustrated (in installation at Jack Tilton Gallery and at P.S. 1 Museum) (edition number unknown)
Connie Rogers Tilton and Lindsay Charlwood, eds., L.A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints, New York, 2011, p. 162, illustrated (in installation at Jack Tilton Gallery and at P.S. 1 Museum) (edition number unknown)

David Hammons’ African American Flag is a rare example in a small suite of flags that fully embodies the artist’s conceptually inventive career and searing socio-political commentary. From an edition of only ten (plus two artist’s proofs), the present work is one of the original in this series that was produced for the exhibition Who's Ice is Colder? at Jack Tilton Gallery in March 1990. Who's Ice Is Colder? comprised of works from Hammons' output that gestured to issues of patronage and power, particularly within the African American artist community. While other examples of Hammons' flags were executed in printed nylon, the present work is from a rare edition executed in the meticulously sewn fabric medium - each star and stripe here is stitched together, imbuing the flag with a remarkable presence and weight that sets it apart from other versions of this work. The present work is a unique, beautifully hand-crafted archetype of Hammons' oeuvre that prompts dynamic engagement with political currents of race and identity that still pervade today’s culture. Other examples from this edition belong to prominent international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Hammons was working in Europe when he met the renowned Curator Christiaan Braun, who was organizing an exhibition of African American artists at the Museum Overholland in Amsterdam; the exhibition would also feature artists Jules Allen, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Martin Puryear and Bill Traylor. It was in the context of this show celebrating African American artists in Amsterdam that the nylon version of Hammons’ African American Flag made its initial debut in the museum’s courtyard in a deliberate gesture to his earlier street interventions. Ten years later, this first iteration was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while another example from this suite of flags hangs outside the Studio Museum in Harlem, solidifying these potent objects’ position in the larger canon of art history. The present work has been included in additional exhibitions from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Philadelphia, imparting a rich exhibition history to this superlative work.

Towering in scale, African American Flag is a dramatic depiction of the United States of America flag as it was conceived in 1959, after Hawaii’s inclusion as the 50th state. Combining the composition and structure of the symbolic United States of America flag with the Pan-African flag, adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), African American Flag unites two distinct and inextricably linked histories of North America. Although America prides itself on the “self-evident truth” that all men are created equal, the uncomfortable and very real truth that this equality and freedom were achieved at the expense of an entire demographic of people is an uncomfortable fact in the nation’s history. The striking image of the American flag is nearly made mundane by its omnipresence in schools and institutions, as well as its association with patriotic holidays throughout the year. In private homes, federal buildings, courthouses and libraries across the nation, the flag soars proudly and triumphantly symbolizing the American Dream, freedom and liberty, yet occluding the harsh realities of how those ideals were achieved. For many, the ethos of the American Dream remains inaccessible, especially to those whose ancestors were excluded from Thomas Jefferson’s statement that all men are created equal. In a declarative act similar to Jefferson’s in 1776, the UNIA-ACL in 1920 created the Pan-African Flag as a powerful companion to the red, white and blue of Old Glory. Stark in its composition and arresting in its vibrant colors, the Pan-African Flag is an equally powerful image that stands for the liberation of people from African origin, the red, black and green bands and stars representing the blood, skin color and rich natural resources of an entire continent, respectively.

In addition to his reinvention of the flag in the service of social critique, Hammons also enters into a renegotiation of art and objecthood. His African American Flag not only addresses the identity of a nation and its racial politics, but also examines its own ontological identity. Constructed of sewn fabric, the present work literally is a flag, but in the same vein as those of Jasper Johns, invites questions of its dual quiddity as a representation of a flag. Unlike Johns’ flags embalmed in encaustic and wax, Hammons’ flag retains its supple and flexible quality, draping naturally according to the way it is hung. Its physicality as an object is such that it could be plucked off a wall and raised up a flagpole, reinventing its significance in a less pristine context than white gallery walls. Hammons deftly conflates these two identities in the present work, applying the allegorical colors of the Pan-African flag to the structure of the American flag, resulting in a complicated image that is both instantly recognizable and completely foreign. The immediacy of this image portrayed under a new guise reflects an evolution of a patriotic emblem and prompts a reexamination of the values it represents.