Flashback 1989: Waiving the flag - American ideals come out the winner in artwork furor

"What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" by Dread Scott

     Searching the vault for Fourth of July stories to share as part of my 250th-palooza celebration, I came upon this curious artifact. Curious for several reasons: first, it was written for the editorial pages six years before I became a columnist, when I was a general assignment reporter. Second, it brings up one of the more notorious artworks ever displayed in Chicago, Dread Scott's "What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" Third, it is 1700 words long, more than twice the length of my regular column. 

     I've never been tempted to renounce an old opinion, but I will note that I winced reading the "Go try that in North Korea" BS I trot out, twice, in this piece. Immature of me — I was 28 years old at the time. Anyway, Happy 4th of July.

     Along with the tang of apple pie, the pop of Fourth of July fireworks and the satisfying crack of a bat at Wrigley Field, the flag flap at the Art Institute has to be seen as something purely American, a symbol of what makes this country great.
     All the participants in this brouhaha did exactly what they were supposed to:
     The young artist, Scott Tyler, did what young artists have been doing throughout time: tossing wrenches into the orderly workings of complacency.
     The veterans, for their part, filled the role of military men: defending the flag and honor of the country.
     And even the School of the Art Institute, which shamed itself during the seizure of David K. Nelson's cruel lampoon of Harold Washington last spring, scraped together newfound courage to fulfill its own role: providing a place for students to test their artistic wings, for good or ill.
     Not only did they all do their various duties, but they did them in a distinctly human way, meaning they were each in the right, but less than they might think, and each in the wrong, though they might not realize it.
     Begin with Tyler, the artist, working under the name "Dread Scott" (which the historically minded will recognize as a misspelling of the name of the slave involved in the 1857 Supreme Court case legally upholding slavery).
     On the positive side, Tyler's artwork, "What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" is not as gratuitous as Nelson's meaningless jab at Washington, but has a defendable message: America does bad things sometimes and many people dislike it for a variety of valid reasons. That analysis may give Tyler more credit than he is due, but assuming the work has a message and is not just a backhand insult, it is a message all but the blindly patriotic can appreciate.
     "In this case, this student not only is making an artistic or esthetic point, but it is very clear he is making a political point," said Professor Sheldon Nahmod, a law professor at IIT-Chicago Kent College of Law. "It's very clear that the flag is first and foremost a political symbol; it represents national unity and patriotism. In my view, whatever one does to the flag is indeed a political statement."
     When put in the context of performance art, Tyler's work seems more impressive. Performance art is a sort of ritualized recklessness that commonly sees artists inciting people to do illegal things. One artist's work featured a gun, set to a timer so that it would fire at some random point. Viewers were invited to sit in a chair with their heads beside the gun, and some of them did. Another artist lay on the floor, surrounded by buckets of water and live, frayed electrical cables, and implor ed viewers to kick over the buckets and electrocute him. Tyler's invitation to violate flag laws seems almost tame by comparison.
     To Tyler's discredit, however, the manifesto the self-named "proletarian internationalist" wrote to justify his artwork shows him to be as blindly zealous in his condemnation of America as patriots can be in their praise.
     "Rambo, Reagan and Bush all love this sacred cow whereas the masses worldwide hate it," he said, referring to the flag his art piece invites viewers to trample and ignoring the fact that the masses hating the United States tend to be those who can't themselves get here, while few U.S. citizens hide under loads of fish trying to start a new life in Cambodia or Peru.
     He points to Iran, Vietnam, South Korea and South Africa as homes of oppressed people who hate the United States, but he fails to recognize the irony that the country he has chosen to relentlessly attack is one of the few places in the world free enough to allow him to make the criticism in the first place.
     The veterans, too, both displayed and departed from the ideals they fought for. To their credit, they generally conducted themselves in an American way - exercising their own right to free speech by protesting, pursuing redress from the courts. The statements of their lawyer, Joseph A. Morris, give more respect to Tyler than Tyler gives to the nation he ridicules while exploiting its freedoms.
     "The display all by itself may be a work of art; you can depict flag desecration, you an put a flag on a clean floor," said Morris, general counsel for the Mid-America Legal Foundation, which represents the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "It may not be great art, but it is a certifiable expression. The problem is an ordinary person looking at this exhibit cannot but draw the conclusion that this is an invitation to walk on the flag."
     The veterans want only to stop people from walking on the flag, not to close the exhibit, punish the artist, or even remove Tyler's work.
     On the other hand, while responsible as a group, individual veterans decided to imitate Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who issued a death sentence for author Rushdie, and go after the blasphemy themselves. One Purple Heart vet attempted to remove the flag (perhaps because he was not an alderman, a Chicago policeman detained him and not the flag). And Thursday a pair of veterans tried storming the school, which had closed the exhibit to the public in the face of numerous threats of violence.
     The school, as well, managed to be both more timid than some would want but bolder than it had been when it groveled apologies after several alderemn seized Nelson's painting. (Too bad the aldermen didn't take umbrage at Van Gogh's self-portrait in the Art Institute. The city could use the money.).
     It did, after all, allow the show, a display of the work of minority artists, one of the concessions made in the wake of the Nelson affair.
     The school also stood by the artist, after a fashion, keeping the exhibit open to students, professors and staff and controlling hostile vets.
     On the negative side, it begged Tyler not to show the work after it was selected for inclusion in the show. The school also closed the exhibit to the public and the press, citing "security concerns," the same excuse offered by bookstores yanking Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
     Perhaps the confusion of those involved is a reflection of the muddiness of the central issue: Is Tyler's artwork legal?
     For all the mention of First Amendment Rights, this is not a First Amendment case, at least not yet, because the government is not involved. The First Amendment says the government cannot infringe your right to free speech. A private group — such as the School of the Art Institute — can, to the extent that it has control over what is displayed in its galleries.
     A 1972 case of a Downstate artist who displayed a work called "The Flag in Chains" reached the Illinois Supreme Court. In this case, the artist displayed an American flag, literally wrapped in chains, and the court ruled that the piece did not violate any laws, since the flag itself was not subject to destruction and the meaning of the piece was ambiguous.
     The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled, several times, that the flag can be humiliated in a variety of ways without involving any illegality.
     But both the Illinois and U.S. Supreme Courts have said the flag cannot be burned or mutilated, and people who have done so have been sent to jail.
     Which leaves the question of whether treading on the flag is destruction or merely abuse, a moot point in the eyes of the veterans, who view Tyler's display as worse than mutilation.
     "The artist's conduct is more egregious than a flag burning," said Morris. A flag burning is brief but the artwork is ongoing, he said. "The Art Institute has a flag desecration every day, with the invitation to come and see it, come and do it."
     But is inviting someone to do something illegal in itself illegal?
     "Nobody is forced to see the exhibit, and those who see the exhibit are not forced to stand on the flag," said Nahmod.
     Cook County Circuit Judge Kenneth L. Gillis agreed with Nahmod and rejected veterans' requests to bar viewers from treading on the flag.
     "This exhibit is as much an invitation to think about the flag as it is an invitation to step on the flag," said Gillis.
     All told, the flag flap — assuming that some unbalanced person does not inject violence into the situation — is a good indication that something possibly bad — the trampling of the U.S. flag — can have unintended good results, if people keep their heads about them.
     What sort of unintended good results?
     The artist, if he is fair, could see that his work sparked much sincere debate and soul searching among the citizens of the country he detests. As a performance artist, he might consider going to countries he seems to prefer — Iran, South Africa, South Korea — and present his display using their flags. Should he survive, he might learn additional lessons.
     The veterans, imbued with zeal for flag etiquette, might notice and do something about the tattered rags which are flown, unprotested, in front of businesses all over Chicago. They might also realize that respect for the American flag is not a product of flag laws, but a product of the country's greatness, a greatness whose vital core is the freedom of speech.
     The School of the Art Institute may learn not to be so fast to betray its more daring students. The scorned renegades of today are the grand old masters of tomorrow (to prove this, all they need to do is stroll next door to the Art Institute and look at the works of such art hellions as John Singer Sargent, who had to flee France in the uproar caused by one of his elegant portraits, or Henri Rousseau, whose whimsical forests were barred for years from the French Salon, too staid to see his genius).
     As onlookers, we can pat ourselves on the back. With all the scorn the we've been heaping on Iran for its reaction to The Satanic Verses, we can take pride that when it was our turn to have our sacred cow - the flag - trod upon, we held true, for the most part, to the greater ideals which that flag - dirty or clean, on a pole or on the ground - represents.
    — Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 5, 1989