White Flag #8, 2015 (detail)

Rabbit skin glue, Champagne chalk, raw honey on linen, cotton and cotton rope on linen

Formally, the series White Flag not only refers to AA Bronson’s own monochromatic paintings—the White AIDS series from 1993 with General Idea—but also to Jasper Johns iconic series of flag paintings begun in 1953. But while Johns early Pop Art paintings disavowed the symbolic meaning of its flags, targets and numbers, treating them as found motifs, AA Bronson uses the charged nature of the flag as national, cultural and personal emblem as an integral part of these works.

Photo © Andrea Rossetti