Jerry Bleem: Still Catalogue is $12

essay by curator Anne Harris
design by Colleen Plumb

The RAC is pleased to present Jerry Bleem’s solo exhibition Still, which is both in our Freeark and FlexSpace galleries. This exhibition and catalogue is a continuation of Jerry Bleem’s extended series, Nationalism. Begun in response to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Bleem transforms well-used American flags into contemplative objects. He does this by cutting each flag into a single, narrow, continuous strip which he then crochets into artwork ranging from wall-sized tapestries to palm-sized soft sculptures.

This by-hand process negates the mass-production of the repurposed flags. Instead, crochet evokes earlier hand-stitched banners, ritualistic repetition, as well as ceremonial hand-carrying and hand-folding. The pieces themselves are organically patterned, with weathered color and seductive surfaces. They invite aesthetic pondering and art history connections, from Jasper Johns to David Hammons. Their challenge lies in their relationship to politics and culture.

This work builds on our history of displaying, manipulating and dissembling the flag in celebration, ceremony, fashion, decoration, propaganda and protest. In the end, Bleem’s work is distinct. By using our flag as both material and subject, he transforms it from the symbol of American patriotism into a metaphor for our complicated, contradictory history.

Bleem states, “By rearranging the surface of the flag, I hope to turn it from something familiar into something that must be deciphered.  In the process, I hope a viewer might wonder how the flag (to which we ‘pledge our allegiance’) also measures our failure to extend ‘liberty and justice for all.’” --Anne Harris