Judson Memorial Church 55th Anniversary of the People's Flag Show
Me with my banned artwork, and Jon Hendricks (one of the Judson 3) at the 55th Anniversary of The People's Flag Show at Judson Memorial Church.
The Judson 3 by Faith Ringgold
What is the work of a flag? What does it represent, and for whom? These questions were at the center of the People’s Flag Show, an exhibition mounted in November 1970 at the Judson Memorial Church in New York by curator and artist Jon Hendricks, artist Jean Toche, and the maker of this print, Faith Ringgold. Catalyzed by a pending Supreme Court case of a gallerist charged with flag desecration for his display of anti-war artworks, the trio invited artists and the larger community to contribute “flag works”—civilian reinterpretations and reclamations of this national symbol—to protest and challenge the limits of the repressive laws.
On the night before the show was to close, Hendricks, Toche, and Ringgold, soon to be known as the Judson 3, were arrested and charged with desecration of the flag. Facing a punishment of a fine or jail sentence for exercising their artistic freedom, Ringgold created this poster in response to their legal fight, with its elongated letter forms evoking prison bars, overlaying her own version of the flag.