Stacking the Deck: "Full House"

Now, no one at the Whitney is complaining or apologizing. Three Flags even flies high on the museum's home page and in advertising. As I note in a much longer exhibition review on my own Web site, from which this is excerpted, "Full House" also leads to a lesser-known and less-colorful flag, a photo by Robert Mapplethorpe of an icon nearing the end of its days. Have I, then, asked a stupid question? Do not be so sure.

For one thing, do not underestimate the artists. Of course, Mapplethorpe has gotten museums in trouble before, and his image dates three years after President Nixon's resignation and two years after the fall of Saigon, perhaps the last time that the flag occupied such contested ground. However, for Johns, too, art's loyalty to American values seemed anything but certain. Abstract Expressionism had everyone talking about whether American culture had triumphed, and the state department even took an interest in its public-relations value. One can see Johns as turning against the New York school in all its triumphs. He painted his first flag in 1955, only a year after Senator McCarthy's censure, with memories still fresh of cultural figures grilled on Congress—and he would not consent to a public display for three full years.

Perhaps Johns meant no disrespect when he made a flag look so stiff and made it far too "in one's face," literally so, to salute. Perhaps he did not anticipate a Democratic "surrender monkey" when he painted his White Flag. Still, do not underestimate politicians out for an easy moral victory either. The 2006 Whitney Biennial took no flak for distributing free posters of torture at Abu Ghraib, by Richard Serra, but the press and politicians leapt all over Amy Wilson for that same image not long before. "Full House" is taking no flak either, but what if the Whitney sought funding for exhibiting closer to Ground Zero? What if Mayor Giuliani were now running for reelection—or for president?

Also do not underestimate the passions of ordinary citizens or the complexity of the issues they would face. You would have to decide, say, whether to keep displaying a flag as worn and weary as Mapplethorpe's or, conversely, to trash it. Others, perhaps the government, would get to ask what you mean by that decision, especially as no one can remember an actual flag burning for the law to target. Such ambiguity endangers the arts far more, too. For every work of art that seeks to send a clear message, many more refuse to do just that, by their very nature as art. My preceding history notwithstanding, politics may hardly have entered Johns's mind.

Protests against America merit defense, because they may reflect America's best interests—or simply because the right to protest is itself in the interest of democracy. Protests that try to seize the higher ground of American interest, where both sides stand for the constitution and a nation's standard of justice, occur far more often, and they, too, deserve protection. However, one should not overlook either how often art gets in trouble because it refuses to give answers one way or another about what it or America means, and people prefer easy answers. I myself cannot say for sure in which category to place controversial images on display this past year—a flag draped across a gallery by Hans Haacke, a flag straitjacket by Lisa Charde, or a flag that James Lee Byars may once have soiled with his shoes on his wya to a typically come-what-may event in Southern California. That ambiguity is keeping museum lawyers busy right now, but it also has a lot to do with why your own thoughts and actions need protection.

You may not think of Jasper Johns when you hear about a flag-burning amendment, but maybe you should. Oh, and that show of the permanent collection is definitely worth a visit. Surprised that a museum would devote itself to just that or that you should care? My longer review delves into my own expectations and the view of American art that "Full House" delivers.