September 29, 2026
This past weekend I had the chance to see a retrospective of the American artist Jasper Johns. Two pieces created 28 years apart stuck with me for what they can say about the US in what can gently be called a fraught moment, and also for what they can say about us as individuals.
The first piece was a 1955 sketch of the American flag and the second was a 1983 painting of a flag (among other things, Johns is famous for his flag paintings). The sketch was a pencil outline of the American flag - a rectangle with an empty box in the top left corner where stars would go and spaces where red and white stripes would go. One way to read it is as what it appeared to be: an outline for an idea he was tinkering with. This being art, it can also be what a viewer (in this case me) sees. In addition to the rough draft of what would become a painting, I saw it as saying the American flag itself is becoming. It is unfinished, waiting for us to give it color and life. The flag isn't a fixed image or plan, it is in the making.
The second American flag piece was filled in. Over part of it Johns painted the optical illusion of a drawing that can be a vase or an image of two faces looking at each other, depending on how you view it. One way to read it is that the flag includes a conversation about itself. The flag is there with us in it, talking about it, as part of what it is.
These pieces, read this way, say that our country is an idea that requires us to complete it. The flag gives general parameters, but it requires us to talk about it in an endless process of filling in. The first drawing says “these are the boundaries within which we are working.” The second imposes a conversation over the stars and stripes. Our conversation about our flag is part of what our flag means. Our nation is in part our conversation about what our nation should be.
Johns started his flag paintings during a time of political and social change in the United States. He showed us different images of flags at a time when, as now, what the flag stands for is a matter of fierce debate. Johns both made flags and showed us images of flags, challenging us to consider what the flag means (or even is). Then, as now, it is up to us to fill in the blank spaces and continue to have the conversations about what the flag stands for. Johns asks us who we are and who we want to become as Americans.
The two images can also be read to be about ourselves, who we are as individuals and who we are becoming. You came to GW and SMPA with an idea of who you were. The canvas wasn't entirely blank, but details had yet to be filled in. The second painting may be who you are now. You have a better sense of your ideas and who you want to be. But you, we, are always in the making. We are never set and final, we are always a conversation about our now and our next.