In the late 1980s, a young student created a piece of art so impactful multiple presidents have discussed it, some directly, some not. In 2016, when Donald Trump declared that people who burned the American flag deserved to lose their citizenship and spend a year in jail, many thought of Dread Scott’s piece.
When George H.W. Bush criticised it at the time, others followed suit and condemned Scott’s work. Just as it was engineered to, it still inspires fierce debate, and What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag highlights the arbitrary material things – guns, flags, Confederate monuments – that some Americans allow to rule them emotionally.
While he was a budding art student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and still going by Scott Tyler, Scott unveiled his contentious piece. The stars and stripes of the flag lay strewn across the floor, and looming above it was a collage of flag-covered military coffins and flag burnings. But the artwork wasn’t purely visual. Audiences were encouraged to engage with it and were free to stand on it. They could also write down their reactions in a ledger.
