Rebellious Stripes and American Icons
Rebellious Stripes: The American Flag in Activist Art, 1960–2025
The American flag originated as an act of protest. That status intensified in the second half of the twentieth century, as protest movements have used and manipulated the flag in provocative ways. Activists and artists have continued to mobilize the flag in pursuit of a variety of objectives, prompting intense public and legal debates about what the flag is (materially), what it represents (symbolically), and how it can or should be used. Rebellious Stripes: The American Flag in Activist Art, 1960-2025 explores the use of the American flag in activist artworks focused on political figures, racial equality, anti-imperialism, and social and economic justice. It draws primarily from the UWM Art Collection, with additions from the UWM Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, and two Universities of Wisconsin faculty-artists. Collectively, the objects in Rebellious Stripes demonstrate the ongoing battle for control of the American flag as people across the political spectrum employ it to signal a range of messages beyond “patriotism.”
American Icons: Sacralizing A Nation
This exhibition explores the ways that religion has been deeply interwoven into the iconography of the United States. Historically, the term ‘icon’ (Greek for ‘image’) is associated with Christian traditions, aligning most notably with venerated religious figures. Today, ‘icon’ is often used more loosely, to refer to something that has become recognizable on a mass scale, but the deep histories of religious imagery inevitably wend their way into iconic representations. Drawing from the UWM Art Collection and supplemented with works from the American Geographical Society Library, American Icons invites viewers to consider what Americans choose to venerate – political and historical figures, national landscapes and monuments, and celebrities and consumer goods. By examining the visual products of reverence, the exhibition demonstrates the multifaceted, complex, and mutable nature of American identity and the ways it is (re)defined by an ever-changing set of icons.