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The American flag. Seen from the side of patriotic pride and cultural modernity, but also under the lens of ferocious military imperialism and racial intolerance. As a tactile sign of hopes hatched and disclosed, but also as disillusionment, broken dreams, tearing contradictions.
At the Altinate – San Gaetano cultural center in Padua, “American Beauty. From Robert Capa to Banksy”, an exhibition project dedicated to the United States of America with a selection of 130 works that tell the lights and shadows of the nation that more than any other has characterized the last century on a global level. And how to do it?
«Through the attentive eyes of dozens of artists who have focused on this great country since the 1940s, highlighting its strengths and critical points – explains Daniel Buso in a note -. The element that these artists have in common is the use of the American flag as a starting iconographic element for the communication of their ideological and formal content”.
“Iwo Jima”
Under the same roof coexist “Iwo Jima” (1945), a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo by Joe Rosenthal, which immortalizes the Marines while hoisting the American flag on the Pacific island of the same name, and “Boy with flag” (1949) by Ruth Orkin, a child portrayed holding a stars and stripes flag in his hand during one of the numerous demonstrations of American patriotism, the still television image of the first moments of the man on the moon “Moonwalk” (1987) by Andy Warhol, but also the white and black by Diane Arbus and Elliott Erwitt, the colors of Steve McCurry, Vanessa Beecroft, Annie Leibovitz, Andres Serrano, the street art represented by Keith Haring, Mr. Brainwash, Obey, Paul Insect and Banksy, up to the fluxus art of George Maciunas, all ordered within the lines of a five-stage narrative.
“Patriotism”
From the section dedicated to “Patriotism”, we slide into “Power” evoked by the New York Stock Exchange Building, by the Washington obelisk, but above all by the faces of Kennedy, Nixon, Bush and Trump. “Cultural conflicts” dominate an entire wing, with a dutiful focus on “Black lives matter” and “War at home” which manifests itself with the widespread diffusion of firearms. A separate chapter is “American Imperialism”, with its propaganda in opposition to the rest of the world, which clashes with the bikini images taken by Michael Dressel and Nina Berman, the grand finale of “A Life with Stars and Stripes”.