Blance

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When asked to summarize his life's work at one of his last public events, Brathwaite poignantly stated, "I love Black people."

Kwame Brathwaite, "Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs)," 1968. Celebrating Kwame Brathwaite. A thread.🧵

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The works' legacy powerfully lives on as it continues to resonate with audiences and spur dialogue around Black pride and nationhood.

Today, "African American Flag" and Hammons' 2017 adaptation, "Oh Say Can You See" (2017) remain seminal pieces of political art and social commentary.

In doing so, "African American Flag" takes a commonplace item imbued with cultural meanings and reconstitutes it to reconsider notions of identity and belonging.

“Outrageously magical things happen when you mess around with a symbol.” The making of David Hammons' "African-American Flag" (1990). A Thread.🧵

A Dadaist, Hammons' gesture of altering the national emblem of America allowed him to utilize and manipulate a readymade object to disrupt its original ingrained assumptions.

By Pan-Africanizing the American flag, Hammons aimed to challenge notions of nationalism and expose the hypocrisy of America’s professed ideals of freedom and equality.

He replaces the flag’s traditional red, white and blue with the Pan-African colors of red, black and green — symbolically representing the blood shed during slavery, the skin and pride of African Americans, and the wealth and prosperity stolen from their ancestors, respectively.

In "African American Flag," Hammons takes the quintessential symbol of America — the Stars and Stripes — and transforms it into a statement on Black pride and solidarity.