Just over a week ago, the exhibition “Independency: The American Flag at 250 Years” started at Southampton Arts Center (25 Jobs Lane, 631-283-0967). Curated by SAC executive director Christina Massaides Strassfield and historian John Monsky, the exhibition combines both visual art and American history, featuring select flags and historic textiles pristinely preserved from centuries ago as well as paintings from Irish-American painter Sean Scully.
“These flags reflect our history, tell our story,” Monsky says. “Flags that were at rallies, battles, celebrations – flags that were present at hope-filled moments and flags that flew during moments of tragedy. It is also important to appreciate the flag as a geometric object. Its creation was an artistic act.”
(Photo courtesy of R. Couri Hay Creative PR)
According to Strassfield, the idea for the exhibition came about when a friend informed her of Monsky’s extremely rare and vast collection within his Southampton and New York City homes, a collection that he’s been building since his childhood. According to a press release from SAC, Monsky’s collection has since served as the focal point of his series of live multi-media musical journeys through history, which he presents at Carnegie Hall and the nation’s top performance venues.
“It’s wonderful to sort of really introduce this to our community,” says Strassfield of Monsky’s collection. “He says that he’s a caretaker for them [the flags], and he is, but it’s an opportunity for so many people to see [flags] from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, D-Day, George Patton’s flag. You know, you very rarely get to see things like this. Even if you go to the Smithsonian and any other place, they’ll have one object, they’ll have two objects. This is just so vast. This collection is amazing. And the history is clearly there.”
According to a press release from SAC, Monsky’s collection has since served as the focal point of his series of live multi-media musical journeys through history, which he presents at Carnegie Hall and the nation’s top performance venues. His “The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day,” performed with the Boston Pops from Boston’s Symphony Hall, is currently streaming on PBS.org. Historic textiles from the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart, along with a pennant flown by the USS Constitution in the War of 1812, the flag carried by the nearly all-Black 25th Corps, flags carried by a US Navy Seal in Afghanistan, and so many more will also be on view.
Items from Monsky on display at throughout galleries at SAC consist of a 1775 kerchief belonging to George Washington, a flag for the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln and flags that went to the moon during the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70’s, dotted with abstract Minimalist works from Scully, that explore the use of geometry.
“I live by the river Hudson where much of the War of Independence was fought, where George Washington sunk the American ships so that when the British Armada came up the Hudson it crashed into them,” Scully says, “so, the issue of the formation of America is consistently on our minds since we live where it was played out. Notwithstanding, my work constantly quotes flags and banners and shifting national identities.”
(Photo courtesy of R. Couri Hay Creative PR)
“Sean Scully’s work adds another dimension to this exhibition,” Strassfield says. “It makes us examine the historical flags, their shapes, dimensions, and proportions more closely and see how contemporary artists have reused and reinvented those elements in their own work.”
Noting her deeply rooted respect for flags, plus the fact that she’s a first-generation American, born from immigrants along with her son being in the military, Strassfield understands and hopes to showcase the importance of what the flag represents.
“The flag belongs to all of us. It doesn’t just belong to one party,” she says. “I felt that, personally, was very, very important. I remember the respect my parents had for the American flag, and flags
“Independency” will be on view at SAC through July 19.
