Two Flags

In 1954, in a radical gesture of liberation, Jasper Johns destroyed his entire early oeuvre in order to begin again with two simple subjects: the American flag and the target ? “Things”, said Johns, “which one already has an idea about and I did not have to invent.” Anyone casts a quick glance at "Two Flags" might well see an abstract painting for a moment. Johns causes a shift in the symbolic signifier of the Stars and Stripes, which is otherwise characterized by total visibility, into the quiet area of monochrome painting, the essentially invisible. “The picture of a flag is always about a flag; but it does not concern a flag any more than it does a brush stroke, a color or the physical characteristics of painting materials, I think.” The flat surface of the flag is copied to the canvas in freely applied brush strokes so that its form corresponds to the picture support. This underlines the object nature of the picture that should be perceived as a concrete reality. ? Are we dealing with a flag or a picture? When viewing the work one oscillates, sliding between recognition of the cliché-like picture motif and the material corporeality of the picture surface. The pastose application of paint conveys the impression of being made and destroys the familiar perfection of the model. The doubling up of the flag affects its simultaneous disappearance.