Happy 4th of July! Here’s Some Patriotic Art

I know, I’m a dork. But, my fellow Americans, and Swedes and Brits and whoever else skims my articles, this is AMERICA. WE ARE AMERICANS NOW. Before you watch fireworks or eat cake or run off to the South of France, take a moment to reflect on GREAT AMERICAN ARTISTS. Unfortunately, my list is a little too laden with males. America will get over itself one of these days…

1. Jasper Johns
   
   Flag (1954-1955), via MoMA
   Duh. Move over Betsy Ross.
2. Andy Warhol
   
   Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), also via MoMA
   Nothing says America like commercialism, mass production, catchy refrigerator magnets and muses with heroin problems.
3. Jeff Koons
   
   Michael Jackson and Bubbles, (1988), via The Whitney
   Nothing else says America like balloon animals, Michael Jackson, pissing off the Louvre and getting rid of back-stock from Gagosian. Also, Lady Gaga likes him. Go to the Whitney or you’re a communist.
4. Cindy Sherman
   
   Untitled #466 (2008) via MoMA again! Do I hate myself?
   Not everything born in New Jersey is good, but every once in a while you get a gem. Sherman’s chameleon-like ways are a one-woman melting pot, and have spanned decades of fascinating insights into character and presence. My favorite is the “Rich Women” series, once exhibited in situ at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. I wrote a piece about it for Art Observed that has been lost to posterity in the blogosphere. RIP February 2011.
5. Richard Prince
   
   Untitled (Cowboys) (1992) via Gagosian
   Cowboys and plagiarism anyone? Maybe just breakfast at Tiffany’s?
6. James Franco
   Just kidding. How is this still a thing?
7. Jean-Michel Basquiat
   
   The artist in 1985, via the Brooklyn Museum
   Before the mostly-terrible Schnabel movie, Basquiat was as New York as 99 cent pizza.
8. Leghead
   
   Leghead is an underground kind of guy right now, but you might have seen his work. Blogger Mitch Broder does a good feature on him.
   This one time I was sitting in Rox Gallery, and Leghead came in and started singing. Then he went into the store next door, swiped a mannequin and a hammer without discussion, and started louding banging outside. Needless to say, I love his work and try to keep an eye out for it out and about in downtown Manhattan. If random, kind of crazy, and really fun isn’t the best amalgamation of American values, I don’t know what is.
9. Helen Frankenthaler
   
   I shamelessly stole this image from a blog called The Artsy Ladies. You love it.
   Mid-20^th century America was arguably its heyday as a formidable source of art and culture. For all the Cowboys of the Abstract Expressionist movement, there were just as many women making fantastic work. Helen is my long lost secret soul sister grandmother, to put it in art historical terms.
10. John Singer Sargent
    
    Madame X (1883-84), via the Metropolitan Museum of Art
    This famous piece had to be repainted, because the original had a fallen strap. Strumpet! Happens to the best of us though, on the real.
    Remember the past, you guys? #history