FZINE: a place for high school students and teachers to read, interact, and contrbute. LAUNCH
above artwork by Leda Seyranoglu
Then the American flag was saluted. In general, in the United States people always salute the American flag. —Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss dramatist
The Star and Stripes is a symbol, a part of our international language. It elicits emotion, displaying it makes a statement. It can represent love or aggression, pride or insecurity, victory or suppression. As a visual symbol, it is inevitably used by artists, whose inherent role is to mine the culture’s vocabulary in order to closely examine the meaning of its most controversial signs, generating new forms of expression in the process.
above artwork by Peter Bergman (left) and Dimitry Tetin (right)
F Newsmagazine desperately tried to get Tom Ford to art direct our 2006 American flagportfolio. We drooled over images of scantily-clad Hollywood icons lounging on top of Old Glory, its bright red and strong blue illuminating the pale glow of their skin, its strict geometric design contrasting with the soft contours of their chiseled abs. Oh, well...
Instead, the design staff of F Newsmagazine presents a collection of images representing the American flag. Some chose to reexamine the use of American flag in the process of image-making, some focused on the graphic possibilities of the flag and others looked at the possibilities of the use of American flag as a symbol to convey national xenophobia and internal prejudicies.
above artwork by Robyn Coffey and Autumn Almanza
Robyn Coffey's article cradles the flags. It examines the recent history of the controversial use of the American flag by contemporary artists. SAIC’s Dread Scott and Wafaa Bilal, and Faith Ringgold. Their non-violent work has instigated instances of violent protest and physical threats against the pieces of art as well as the artists themselves.
MARCH 2006