Two Flags

 

2022

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Aluminum profile extrusion linear rail, wire rope, acrylic sheet, plastisol ink

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In the work Two Flags, the artist uses aluminum profile structure as the frame in his creation, and transformed the work Flag (1955) by American artist Jasper Johns into a pair of "national flags” that are constructed only by text printed on clear sheet acrylic. Johns' Flag (1955) consists of three canvases of varying sizes; although not conceptually intentional, these three separate frames divide the image of the American flag into three parts in which the matrix of five-pointed stars in the upper left and the two blue and white "color fields"(a term commonly used in describing a branching style of Abstract Expressionism) are painted on different panels. The deconstructed image composition roughly outlined by such text-based method is also applicable to the description of the elements and composition of China’s national flag. Therefore, in this seemingly insignificant way, the images of the flags that represent the two poles of the current international situation have become mirror images of each other through the vision of Conceptual Art, blurring the deliberately rendered confrontational relation between the two super powers of today's world. 

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