Today is the perfect day to bring up Carl Tashian’s FLAG OF EQUAL MARRIAGE which is:
…an evolving protest flag for equal marriage rights in the United States.
The stars on the Jan 1, 2010 flag represent the states that actively perform same-sex marriages. Stars are arranged on the blue field in order of each state’s admission into the union.
The background:
in 1902, when the women’s suffrage movement was just getting warmed up, the American flag had 45 stars.
In protest, the suffragists created their own US flag with only four stars, representing the four states that allowed women to vote.
This flag flew at the podium of the First International Womens Suffrage Conference in 1902, and it was my inspiration for a re-appropriation of the American flag. Unfortunately, the states that were so progressive regarding women’s suffrage in 1902 have state-wide same-sex marriage bans today.
More info here. And for background on the more commonly accepted LGBT Rainbow Flag check here, which includes the symbolism of each color.
HAPPY PRIDE!
I always liked Elbowtoe’s “white line” street works but most of them that I spot tend to be words alone.
He’s done large white drawings before but I never get to see them. Thankfully, Flickr fills the void.
![DS_TheAutopsyofMichaelJ05_b[1]](http://hragvartanian.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/DS_TheAutopsyofMichaelJ05_b1.jpg "DS_TheAutopsyofMichaelJ05_b[1]")
Olympia Lambert has resurrected Dana Schutz’ painting The Autopsy of Michael Jackson (2005) [pictured above] and ponders how much it is worth nowadays:
Anyone care to guess how much it’s went up in value in the past 48 hours? My own guestimate would be at least into the $2 million range.
In an interview with Mei Chin for Bomb Magazine, Scultz spoke about her Jackson masterpiece and raised some questions that are true now more than ever:
I also painted The Autopsy of Michael Jackson. In some ways he’s the most self-made man there is, to the point of it becoming really scary. I was thinking of the painting as a photograph that hasn’t been taken yet. I posited all these question around Michael Jackson’s death: How does he die? How old is he? What shape is he in? What does he look like naked? He ended up looking like just a dead man. Which for me was very strange. I ended up having sympathy for him. There is an immortality about him in life. In the painting there is an autopsy incision alluding to his insides, which is intrusive and contradicts the constant reforming of his external features. In the painting he is very mortal. (source)
Considering Michael Jackson’s many many flaws and the circumstances of his death, he seems more mortal than Schultz’ painting. Also, I suspect that if she were to repaint that image today perhaps there would be figures surrounding Michael Jackson’s body tweeting what they were seeing and feeling–quiet contemplation seems almost quaint nowadays.
NOTE: THIS POST WAS CORRECTED AS THE WRONG IMAGE WAS POSTED EARLIER. THE EARLIER IMAGE WAS “PRESENTATION” BY THE SAME ARTIST.
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