Broad Acquires a David Hammons Flag

It's been remarked that none of the artists in the Broad's "Soul of a Nation" exhibition are represented in the Broad collection. Not quite—the Broad has recently acquired its first David Hammons, African-American Flag (1990). It's from the original edition of five created for an exhibition in Amsterdam. That was followed by an edition of ten, and the widely exhibited Flag has become one of Hammons' better-known works. One version hangs from the facade of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

One of the Amsterdam flags was auctioned for $2.05 million in 2017. MoMA owns another.

When first exhibited in 1990 African-American Flag was understood as a reference to the culture war sparked by Dread Scott's 1988 installation What Is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag? That presented a red, white, and blue flag on the floor. President George H.W. Bush called Scott's piece "disgraceful" and unsuccessfully lobbied for a constitutional amendment  to "protect the flag."