I believe art should speak for itself and that it is rarely beneficial for artists to over-explain their works. But since my artwork for Creative Time’s “Pledges of Allegiance” project elicited such strong reactions, I feel that my voice as the artist should be heard. The way in which the piece was made speaks to my intent, which until now has not been discussed.

Untitled (Flag 2) was conceived in the spring of 2017 for “Pledges of Allegiance,” a project in which sixteen artists were invited to create artworks in the shape of a flag for Creative Time’s annual fundraiser, without specific public locations in mind yet.

There is a long tradition of artists working with the iconography of the flag, creating new perspectives and interpretations of aesthetics, but also addressing the paradoxes inherent in politics to enter a collective discourse. My contribution to “Pledges of Allegiance” comes out of this tradition. It is a conceptual work that engages with forms of representation, and is not intended to be read as an actual desecrated American flag.

Rather than using a real flag, I employed the technique of collage, superimposing multiple images. The most prominent element of the work is an image derived from my abstract drip painting from 2015 entitled “Goodbye to Language,” which resembles a map of the United States and includes a single striped sock, which was superimposed onto a graphic design of a flag, creating a collage. “Goodbye to Language” takes its title from Jean-Luc Godard’s 2014 film “Adieu au Language,” a fractured, experimental work involving two couples both coming together and growing apart. The word “adieu,” in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, can mean both "hello" and "goodbye," depending on the context of its use.

Untitled (Flag 2) is a metaphorical artwork. I hope that within the public contexts of the organizations with which Creative Time has partnered to display the work, it can contribute to a necessary discussion about art’s role in society, who we are as a nation, what divides us, and what brings us together.

Josephine Meckseper, 27 July 2018