Though the recent July 4th holiday marks the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence that proclaimed the 13 colonies’ separation from Great Britain and it wasn’t until June of the following year that the fledgling union of states adopted Old Glory as its official flag, its red, white, and blue pattern of stripes and stars has become a staple of July 4th celebrations — much more so, in fact, than the rarely observed Flag Day.

For these and innumerable other reasons, the U.S. flag has proved an inexhaustible source of inspiration, fodder for allusion, and focus of political commentary for artists over the past 225 years. Here, ARTINFO has collected their favorite pieces of flag art and ranked them from the most patriotic to the most dissident, including Ed Kienholz’s War Memorial (1968).

“In his enormous installation based on — among other sources — the 1945 photograph “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,” Kienholz restages the heroic erecting of the U.S. flag by American soldiers amidst a quintessential diner scene, with the flag markedly shrunken as an implied criticism not only of American consumerism but of the country’s contemporaneous military activities.”

Reblogged from Artinfo