FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

[Insta of the Week] Art for Independence Day

Klaus Biesenbach celebrates the stars and stripes in art.
Barbara Kruger's Untitled (Questions), 1991, via @klausbiesenbach

To show his love of country and art, Chief Curator at Large at MoMA and Director of MoMA PS1, Klaus Biesenbach is devoting his Instagram account today to American-themed art. Using the hashtag #reflecting4thofjuly, Biesenbach for the second year in a row is sharing works that consider American identity.

Biesenbach tells The Creators Project, “Last year, I didn't do much for the Fourth of July and we had just opened the big Rockaway! art show, the weather wasn't perfect, so I went online, researched the stars and stripes, and literally just shared the results on the Instagram platform." He adds, “Instagram is a way to communicate, to share, and to start a dialogue. It's an inspiration.”

Advertisement

Thus far Biesenbach has shared Robert Mapplethorpe’s American Flag and David Hammons’ African-American Flag, both iconic works that celebrate the symbol of pride for a nation. The curator has also shared more complicated renderings of the flag like Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Questions), that call attention to the history of the United States by asking questions like “Who is free to choose?” He has also posted a photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono standing in front of a flag by Fluxus artist George Maciunas entitled, USA Surpasses all the Genocide Records! from 1970.

But don’t think of the director’s sharing as curating: “the word "curating" is overused, it’s not a curated show, it’s just simply celebrating a very special day that means so much to everybody in this country," Biesenbach says "but also everyone around the world, with artworks that make us look at this very special day differently, critically, disturbingly, revealingly, just a visual pause to contemplate a bit about what the day is about and what it really means.”

See more artworld selects by Biesenbach:

To follow #reflecting4thofjuly click over to Biesenbach’s Instagram, here.

Related:

Artist Sculpts Her Own American Flag

Raise a Flag—GIF—on July 4th

Klaus Biesenbach on 'Zero Tolerance'