Breathing Flag, 2017 by Nari Ward
Ward’s Breathing Flag references Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) flag combined with an African prayer symbol known as a Congolese Cosmogram, representing birth, life, death and rebirth. Ward explains, “several of these hole patterns are drilled into the floorboards of one of the oldest African-American churches in the United States in Savannah, Georgia. It is believed that the drilled pattern functioned as breathing holes for runaway slaves who, hiding under the floor, awaited safe transport north.” He continues, “the union of that moment and of Garvey’s black nationalist flag acknowledge the resilience of the human spirit to survive even as we continue the need to remind America that Black Lives Matter.”
Nari Ward’s Breathing Flag was on view August 9th – September 13th, 2017 at:
– Creative Time Headquarters, 59 East 4th Street, NY, NY
– Queens Museum, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York City Building, Corona, NY
– Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA
– 21C Museum Hotel Durham, 111 Corcoran St, Durham, NC
– University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, 3821 USF Holly Drive, Tampa, FL
– Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 4454 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI
– Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 114 Central Ave, Ithaca, NY
About Nari Ward
Nari Ward was born in St. Andrew, Jamaica and lives and works in New York. He graduated with a BA from City University of New York, Hunter College in 1989 and an MFA from City University of New York, Brooklyn College in 1992. Ward’s work has been widely exhibited on an international level, including solo exhibitions at The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL (2015); and elsewhere. Ward’s solo exhibition G.O.A.T., again is currently on view at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City.
Photographs by Guillaume Ziccarelli and Nicholas Prakas