4th of July Barbecue Flag (State II) turns the American flag into a moving symbol of both national pride and its built-in contradictions. Made from the ashes of a burned flag, the print shows the stars and stripes fading into darkness. The ashes give the once-bright banner a soft, faded look, turning it into a reminder of how things can be destroyed and changed at the same time. Ortiz-Torres connects this process to his own thinking about how destruction can also lead to making something new; the piece itself grows out of that cycle of loss and creation.
Like Jasper Johns’ famous Flag (1954-55), Ortiz-Torres’ work invites us to look beyond the shape and colors of the flag and to question what it means when a symbol so central to American identity is re-seen in new materials. And like David Hammons’ African American Flag (1990), a representation of Black identity, Ortiz-Torres’ art reminds us that national symbols don’t always represent the same things to everyone. As Ortiz-Torres says, “Whether it’s Jasper Johns or David Hammons, it seems to me that [the flag] really becomes a symbol of freedom when there’s freedom to create it in different versions and interpretations.” Quiet but powerful, this work asks viewers to rethink what national symbols mean, showing the uncertainty under the surface of celebration—how joy, hope, loss, and promise can all exist at once.
Description written by Jin Mo Park, 2025.