Exhibition at UW-Fond du Lac captures artist Marc Tasman’s efforts to change the design of the American flag

An artist who has spent much of the past year on a campaign to officially change the design of the American flag to better reflect post-9/11 realities will unveil his work “Proposal for the New American Flag: Representing a New Constellation” at the UW-Fond du Lac Visual Art Gallery, 400 University Dr., during an opening reception from 4 to 6 pm on Dec. 13.

The reception will begin with a flag raising ceremony and parade. It is free and open to the public. Marc Tasman’s exhibition includes videos, posters, maps, letters to government officials, and hundreds of the new American flags ranging in scale from four inches (which are free to the public) to nine feet. The exhibit will run thru February.

This is a follow-up to the exhibition of work by seven artists who received Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists in 2006.

Catalogue essayist Sarah Kanouse writes of the exhibit: "At a cursory glance, Tasman's flag looks the same as the familiar Old Glory, but subtle changes—nineteen stripes to reflect the naïveté of September 10, ninety-nine stars on the blue field—clue the viewer that the state of the Union has shifted. Tasman's flag does more than materialize the supposed historical turning point of September 11, 2001. It makes visible in iconic form the beliefs that justify profound changes in far more significant pillars of our democracy: those civil liberties established in the bill of rights and human rights standards set by international law… Tasman offers it as an opportunity to reconsider the complex relationship between the nation, its symbols, and its future."

Tasman, an inter-media artist, is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication and the coordinator of the Digital Arts and Culture program at UW-Milwaukee. He received his M.F.A. in photography from the Ohio State University and a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Louisville.

His video showing surveillance footage of numerous attacks on a booby-trapped political yard sign in 2004, “Who is Stealing My Sign?” was selected for the competition program at the 45th Ann Arbor Film Festival. In May 2007, Tasman traveled to Poland to present a paper about Borat at a Holocaust conference.

The Nohl Fellowship exhibition brought together work by Santiago Cucullu, Scott Reeder and Chris Smith (selected in the Established Artist category) and emerging artists donebestdone, Dan Klopp, Christopher Niver and Marc Tasman. The fellowship is one of the largest and most prestigious in Wisconsin.

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