Summertime 30 years ago, I was on a road trip with my beau, traversing lush fields of Connecticut on route from New Milford to New Bedford with plans to return westward via the Berkshires. It was a sojourn inspired by 19th century American literature. Walden Pond was the ultimate destination. Never at a loss for conversation, we nonetheless drifted into hushed contemplation of the picturesque. Then, an eerie feeling inexplicably emerged. I didn’t mention it because there was no reason to cause alarm. Ensconced in Arcadia, we were bathed in golden rays, caressed by a fragrant breeze. We didn’t have a care in the world. Yet, the unease persisted and devolved into dread, drawing attention inward. What was happening? We drove for what seemed a long time. Then, as seamlessly as it took hold, the haunting lifted. I was relieved to hear my friend confess that he also had been inexplicably held in the grip of fear. As we reassured one another, we came upon a road sign. It marked the terrain that we had just traversed as the site of a major battle of the Revolutionary war.
A taunt reclaimed
Connecticut’s anthem is, “Yankee Doodle,” the revolutionary hymn and nursery rhyme. The melody predates the lyrics which confound the contemporary listener, beginning with the overarching question of what a Yankee Doodle dandy actually is. The expression was wielded by the British military who mocked colonial soldiers as simpletons and sissies. The terms, Yankee and Doodle derive from Dutch and German, (Yanker and Dödel, respectively) translated as commoner, fool. A dandy is a middle-class man with assumed airs expressed by elaborate fashion. Another point of inquiry is the lyrical reference to macaroni of all things. The macaroni wig was an ostentatious accessory of the Rococo period donned by effeminate men of pretension. A lesser fashion statement—although equally deplorable from an elitist standpoint—was the feathered cap, a bourgeois staple.
Just as the gay community reclaimed the insult, “queer,” to subvert its power, grounding it in the protest chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” after the Stonewall riots, summer of 1969, so did colonial troops in the Revolutionary War take hold of “Yankee Doodle dandy,” wielding it against their oppressors. Apparently, armed with the hymn, a girly band of guerilla warriors taunted British loyalists upon their surrender at Saratoga:
Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.
[Chorus]
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
The millions who died and sacrificed for your freedom cry out from beyond the grave
I met my then companion, while reading, “On the Road.” Coincidentally, his name was Dean. We were students at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an academy situated within a museum. We were awarded traveling fellowships upon graduation. During our admission year, an undergraduate with the alias, Dread Scott produced a sensational artwork, “What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag,” (1989) in which the American flag was laid on the floor of a school gallery beneath a notebook on a wall–mounted shelf.1 In order to write a response to the question, viewers had to step on the flag. The work was decried as “disgraceful,” by Congress and protested by veterans. For its defense of artistic freedom in support of the work, the school lost approximately $65,000 of state funding the following year.2 A viewer’s entry to Scott’s query reads:
The millions…who died and sacrificed for your freedom cry out from beyond the grave.
Dread Scott discusses his artwork in a 2018 Ted talk (0:06:45) Link
A poem of humankind-ness, of human-kindness
Among my favorite courses at the Art Institute was one on the history of photography conducted within the context of a retrospective exhibit, “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography.”3 It was taught by one of the curators, Colin Westerbeck who held class in the galleries. I was especially impressed by the photobook, “The Americans,” by Robert Frank, an artist at the forefront of street photography for whom Westerbeck had special admiration. The book was published in France, then several years later in the U. S. with an introduction by, Jack Kerouac.4 Each chapter begins with an image of the American flag and features images exploring the American identity via snapshots taken on a road trip during the 1950s –the Cold War era fraught with McCarthyism and civil rights struggle. The project portrayed “the people—black and white, military and civilian, urban and rural, poor and middle class.”5 The unbiased lens of the Swiss–born American and his uncanny ability to capture what Henri Cartier Bresson called, “the decisive moment,” produced an uncanny, cinematic, documentary.
An excerpt from Kerouac’s introduction:
What a poem this is, what poems can be written about this book of pictures some day by some young new writer high by candlelight bending over them describing every gray mysterious detail, the gray film that caught the actual pink juice of human kind. Whether ‘tis the milk of humankind-ness, of human–kindness, Shakespeare meant, makes no difference when you look at these pictures. Better than a show….Anybody doesnt like these pitchers don’t like potry, see? Anybody don’t like potry, go home see Television….Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.
1955
In consideration of an image from the eighty or so that comprise the book: “Hoboken,” (1955), we see two figures standing in windows, as though they were integral to the edifice, like columns. Isolated in adjacent apartments, each is framed by a window. They appear to be onlookers of a parade. One person wears a house dress; the other, an overcoat. Both seem to be women. The window shade looms over the head of one like a guillotine; her gaze is obscured by shadow, but seems to meet the viewer. The other’s head is cut-off by an American flag mounted on the façade.
Robert Frank, Hoboken, 1955, silver gelatin print; from, The Americans, 1955-57
The image facilitates comparative analysis with another artwork made the same year, Jasper Johns’s, “Target With Four Faces,” (1955).6 In the wax–based assemblage, a row of heads seems to peer out from behind a shade–like structure, despite being cropped at eye-level. There is the sense that they manage to see past their blindfold as a photographer’s eye penetrates the obstruction of the camera to see what lays before it. (“Robert Frank…You got eyes.”) The cropped heads are juxtaposed with a target that dominates the field below. Its bands radiate like amplified sound. The canvas assumes the form of a window shade partially pulled down. It is as though the painting were pulling back a curtain to reveal a secret surveillance network in the scaffolds. Uncoil the rings of the target into horizontal bands, and you will find a similar structural template for Johns’s celebrated series of American Flags, works from the same period.
Jasper Johns, Target With Four Faces, 1955. Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surmounted by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front.
When consulted about the Scott scandal in the late 1980s, Johns defended the artist’s right to express himself, irrespective of the subject matter and its potential for offense. Johns is 92 years of age. He lives in Connecticut, north of New Milford. His work is the subject of two current retrospectives that include recent work.
Anti-patriotism
Dread Scott’s website features a portfolio of agitprop. The predominant medium is photomontage. Some texts eschew imagery, resting solely upon language. Some sport hashtags to facilitate social broadcast. Selected titles include: “Black Man Running;” “White People Can’t Be Trusted With Power;” “On The Impossibility of Freedom In a Country Founded On Slavery and Genocide.” Two recent performances include a reenactment of a slave rebellion and a virtual auction of a man, “White Man For Sale,” sold as a video NFT by British auctioneer in 2021.7 According to the artist’s website:
The White Male for Sale NFT video is a slow motion shot of a generic white male, in typical middle class work shirt and pants, standing, relatively motionless as Black Brooklyn passes by. As the video seamlessly loops this auction goes on forever. This simple “substitution” calls into question the whole history of slavery, capitalism and the ideology of white supremacy, with a particular relevance to the US.
Agitprop
Definition: political propaganda promulgated chiefly in literature, drama, music, or art
Scott’s work resonates with emerging artists such as Zachary Clifford, a printmaker whose 2019 graduate thesis, “Anthem,” grounds Scott and Johns’s exploration of the American flag in a discussion of his own art which explores gun violence targeting Black men.8 Fittingly, the thesis was submitted to Kent State.
Scott’s critique of patriotism by way of the flag three decades ago prefigured the performative gestures that object to patriotism or veneration of the national anthem popularized by Colin Kaepernick. Anti-patriotism and anti-religion politics have filtered into the grade school classroom where there is growing concern to strike the phrase, “One nation under God,” from the pledge of allegiance to the flag, along with calls to eliminate the pledge from schools altogether.
There is a movement to replace the American flag. This is the subject of a current exhibit, “This is Not America’s Flag,” at The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles.9 It features David Hammons’s “African–American Flag,” (1990), a version of the banner in a palette adopted from a Pan–African flag. According to a critic, a contemporary work in the show by Hank Willis Thomas, “assigns stars to victims of gun violence.”10 The exhibit does not feature an new design for public consideration.
There is interest in replacing the national anthem, “The Star–Spangled Banner,” (1814) with the Black hymn, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” (1900), promoted by the NAACP as the “Negro national anthem.” As is presently the case, the national anthem shares public interest with several patriotic hymns including, “America, the Beautiful,” “God Bless America,” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” Like “Yankee Doodle,” the latter was a work of appropriation or detournement that reclaimed the melody of Britain’s national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” subverting the lyrics. I don’t see why we couldn’t embrace more songs of celebration in the patriotic repertoire.
A prime target
The “Star–Spangled Banner,” was adopted by Congress as the national anthem in 1931. Although a staple of Independence Day celebrations, it is not a hymn from the Revolutionary War, but a testament from the War of 1812, a three-year war with Great Britain. Its lyrics were transcribed by, Francis Scott Key, an amateur poet who enjoyed an eye witness account of the harrowing attack by the British navy on Fort McHenry in the Chesapeake Bay (1814). Despite being pummeled by intense shelling, American soldiers held firm and gallantly defended the base. The battle was part of the Royal navy’s “Chesapeake Campaign,” (1813-15). A clever battle tactic to reduce enemy combatants and enlist cheap soldiers, the British promised American slaves their freedom if they enlisted as loyalists.11 Approximately 4,000 African–Americans decamped to fight against Americans. Six hundred joined troops in the attacks on Baltimore and Washington that burned down the capital. Others were sent (regrettably, often without their families) to British colonies in the Caribbean (Trinidad, Bermuda) and New Britain (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick).
The tale of the “Blue Lights,” (1814) conveys a treasonous conspiracy of Federalists and loyalists, many of whom resided in New England.12 Federalists in Congress failed to see the British as enemy; they voted against the war measures 90% of the time. An American blockade runner towing a captured British vessel became trapped in the harbor of New London, Connecticut. Surrounded by the royal fleet, he planned to steal away under cover of night with the ship in tow until reports revealed traitors had tipped off the British by light signal from the coast. Subsequently, conspirators gathered in Hartford to debate secession from the U.S. to rejoin the Kingdom. Newspapers reported the Hartford Convention as “the blackest treason.”
The naval submarine base at New London remains a U.S. military stronghold. It is home to the first nuclear submarine and a prime target in the case of war.
Relevant questions
The “Star-Spangled Banner” poses an important query: was Imperialism defeated? Do freedom, democracy and bravery endure or have we lapsed into complacent or cowardly compliance to tyrannical rule?
In my opinion, these questions remain as relevant today as ever before.
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I am embarrassed by my inability to hold a tune, but I am stepping up to the mike to volunteer my enthusiasm for the national anthem and the American flag (and for freedom, diversity, fairness, loyalty, courage, love, activism, art, literature, poetry…) I present this performance with humility, seeking strength in vulnerability. I implore you to please STEP UP! SPEAK UP! Amplify my weak voice by joining in unison.
Happy Fourth of July everybody!
Peace and love,
Poppy
As always, comments are most welcome. Please scroll past the notes to post. Thank you!
Dread Scott, “What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag,” 1989
https://www.dreadscott.net/portfolio_page/what-is-the-proper-way-to-display-a-us-flag/
Dread Scott, “How art can shape America’s conversation about freedom,” Ted2018
Artist discussing his seminal work, “What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag,”
Shawn Pogatchnik, Flag Uproar May Cost Art Institute Money, Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1989
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-06-01-8902050857-story.html
“On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography,” Art Institute of Chicago, Sept 16–Nov 16, 1989. Curated by David Travis, Art Institute of Chicago, and Sarah Greenough, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. in conjunction with Joel Snyder, University of Chicago, and Colin Westerbeck, Art Institute of Chicago.
https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/7945/on-the-art-of-fixing-a-shadow-150-years-of-photography
Jack Kerouac, Introduction to Robert Frank’s Photobook, The Americans
https://oscarenfotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/p1_americans_intro.pdf
Robert Frank, The Americans, 1955-57, National Gallery of Art
https://www.nga.gov/features/robert-frank/the-americans-1955-57.html
Jasper Johns, “Target With Four Faces,” 1955
Dread Scott, White Male For Sale, 2021
https://www.dreadscott.net/portfolio_page/white-male-for-sale/
Zachary Clifford, “Anthem,” graduate thesis statement, Kent State University of Ohio, 2019
“This Is Not America’s Flag,” The Broad, Los Angeles, May 21–Sept 22, 2022
https://www.thebroad.org/art/special-exhibitions/not-americas-flag
Jonathon Keats, “This Provocative New Exhibit Asks Whether It’s Time To Retire The American Flag… And What Should Replace It,” Forbes, May 31, 2022
U.S. National Park Service, “African Americans and the War of 1812 on Tangier Island: A Lightning Lesson from Teaching with Historic Places”
U.S. National Park Service, “Summer 1813: Mysterious “blue lights” appear on the Connecticut coast,”
Anthem / Anathema
Educational, interesting and lovely use of vocabulary like agitprop. To hear your lovely voice sing a huge plus. Thank you
Wow, re your opening paragraph...I recently read a short story that relayed a very similar haunting of a geographical area, with sound effects as well! The book is called Broth from the Cauldron, by Cerridwen Fallingstar. The story from the book is on page 60, called Hawaiian Ghost Story.
The whole book is a nice read. Best here https://theheartofthefire.com/