My Friend Goo

Faith Ringgold | Peoples Flag Show

Faith Ringgold

Peoples Flag Show 

New York City, USA: Self-published, 1970

45.7 × 61 cm.

Edition size unknown

Last week Donald Trump revived calls for demonstrators who burn American flags to be sentenced to a year in prison. 

"I happen to think if you burn an American flag, because they were burning a lot of flags in Los Angeles, I think you go to jail for one year, just automatic," he told the New York Post.

Currently flag burning is neither unlawful nor unconstitutional, but Senator Josh Hawley responded to Trump’s statements by proposing a bill that would create stiffer penalties for rioters who burned American flags. 

Stephen Radich (1922 - 2007) was a New York gallerist charged with desecrating the American flag. From 1960 to 1969, he operated the Stephen Radich Gallery, where he exhibited works by Yayoi Kusama, George Sugarman, Dmitri Hadzi and others. 

In December of 1966 he presented an exhibition of works by Marc Morrel, which incorporated American flags as a protest against the Vietnam War. Morrel, a former marine, produced soft sculptures with titles like "The United States Flag in a Yellow Noose” and "The United States Flag as a Crucified Phallus”.

The exhibition came to the attention of the New York City police, and Radich was charged and convicted of "casting contempt on the American flag”1. He was ordered to pay a fine of $500 (which would amount to almost five thousand dollars today, adjusted for inflation), or face sixty days in jail. 

At the time, Jon Hendricks was the was the director of the gallery at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. He organized an event with his Guerrilla Art Action Group collaborator Jean Toche, and Faith Ringgold. They distributed a flyer titled “Call for Work for People’s Flag Show,” writing:

“As a challenge to the repressive laws governing so-called flag desecration, concerned artists and citizens are asked to participate in an exhibition, on Nov. 9th, 1970. The exhibition will run through Nov. 14th. Artists may not retain their conspicuous silence in times such as these. All participants should please limit their contribution to one piece. The delivery date for all work is Sunday afternoon, Nov. 8… Your voice is your sole defense against repression.”

Over a hundred and fifty works were submitted to The People’s Flag Show. These included a flag baked into a cake, a flag made of commercial pop cans, and a flag in the shape of a penis. Kate Millett draped a flag over a toilet bowl. Yvonne Rainer performed a nude dance with flags, and Abbie Hoffman spoke while wearing the flag skirt that he had been arrested for two years prior. Hendricks and Toche (below) burned a flag just prior to the exhibition opening, in the church’s courtyard. 

The Attorney General ordered the exhibition closed on November 13th - only a day earlier than planned - and Hendricks, Toche and Ringgold were arrested, charged with desecration of the flag. They became known as the Judson 32, and were convicted and fined $100 each.3

"In 1970, there was a Flag Show that took place at the Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square Park, for which Faith designed the poster and I wrote the words.  The show, after massive participation on the part of artists in New York, was closed by the Attorney General's office.  Faith, Jon Hendricks and Jon Toche were arrested and charged with Desecration of the Flag.  As a consequence, they were dubbed the Judson 3.  They were subsequently vindicated of all charges on Appeal by lawyers who were assisted by the American Civil Liberties Union.  It was an important case for Freedom of Speech among Artists.  In this poster, Faith further  develops her increasingly sophisticated use of words and lettering in art, as well as the image of the American Flag.”

- Michele Wallace, the artist’s daughter

1. Radich appealed his conviction to the United States Supreme Court, which, in 1971, returned a tie vote. Eventually, in 1974, a federal judge overturned the conviction.

2. Jean Toche was arrested again in 1974, this time by the FBI. He was charged with mailing a kidnapping threat to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The threat, in the form of a flyer, called for the kidnapping of "museum trustees, directors, administrators, curators and benefactors”. He maintained his practice of combining mail art tactics with radical politics until his death in 2018. 

Ringgold died at her New Jersey home, on April 13, 2024, at age 93. Jon Hendricks became the world’s leading scholar on Fluxus and remains the curator and archivist for Yoko Ono. 

3. Like Radich, their fines were also overturned with support from the New York Civil Liberties Union.

 

John Lennon | Bag One catalogue

John Lennon

Bag One catalogue

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Michael Podulke and Gerard Bernard, 1970.

28 pp., 16.5 x 15 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

A less common catalogue for an exhibition of Lennon’s erotic lithographs (see previous post). The cover features a photograph of Lennon and Ono at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969, during their Bed-In event. The drawings represent less public aspects of their honeymoon: Ono with her legs spread, masturbating, and giving and receiving oral sex. 

From their earliest days together, Lennon was not shy about sharing intimate aspects of their life together. The couple posed nude for their Two Virgins album cover on the night that they first consummated their relationship. One of the last photographs of Lennon is by Annie Leibowitz and features him naked and embracing a clothed Ono (both images appeared on the covers of Rolling Stone magazine). A few months prior the pair were photographed undressing and making love (footage which was later used for the music video “Woman”). 

And Lennon's love of cunnilingus is well documented. During the 1972 One To One concert (see the 2025 documentary of the same name), Lennon’s performance of the song “Well, Well, Well” features the line “she looked so beautiful I could eat her” followed by the ad-lib “I did”. "It’s So Hard", also performed at the One To One concert, includes the line “Sometimes I feel like goin’ down”. In one of the many tell-all books by former associates (I can’t remember which), the author describes looking at the piece of paper inside Lennon’s typewriter and it simply stating “I am eating Yoko’s pussy”. 

John Lennon | Bag One

John Lennon
Bag One
New York City, USA: Cinnamon Press, 1970
76.2 x 58.4 cm.
Edition of 300 signed and numbered copies [+ 45 hors commerce]

Anthony Fawcett met John Lennon and Yoko Ono when he was working at the Robert Fraser Gallery, and later assisted them with their Acorn Piece and Lennon's You Are Here. In February of 1969, he introduced Lennon to the technique of lithography and proposed that he produce a series of lithographs.

Ed Newman of Curwen press recalls "We just had everything in the corner of a room, so that whenever John felt like it, he could just do it. When he was inspired, he would work very quickly."

Lennon began work on a series of images using the technique, documenting his wedding and honeymoon. Aldo Crommylynck, Picasso's printer in Paris, produced trial prints which Lennon was reportedly pleased with, and arrangements were made to have the entire series produced in London. Fourteen images were selected and a fifteenth was written directly onto the zinc plate at the London printers in June of 1969.

Fashion designer Ted Lapidus (who is credited with creating 'unisex' fashions, and had previously made clothes for Lennon, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy, Twiggy and others) designed a white plastic zippered bag to house the prints. The name Bag One referred to Ono's Bag Piece, which the couple would sometimes perform in lieu of traditional interviews.

Lennon signed the 5145 prints during his stay at Ronnie Hawkins farm in Streetsville, Ontario, where Lennon and Ono stayed before the couple met with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

A month later, in January 1970, the prints were presented in an exhibition at Eugene Schuster's London Arts Gallery at 22 New Bond Street. The portfolio was offered for £550, with individual prints priced at £40 each. Fifty sets and twenty individual prints sold at the opening.

Less than 24 hours later, the police raided the gallery and confiscated eight works on the grounds that they were obscene. The images featured Ono with her legs spread, Ono masturbating, and Lennon performing cunnilingus ("Sometimes I feel like going down" he sang on It's So Hard, the following year). In one image, a threesome is depicted, with what appears to be Ono and two Lennons.

Detective Inspector Frederick Luff, the head of Scotland Yard's obscene publications squad, said that the lithographs were "the work of a sick mind", but the Director of Public Prosecution declined to prosecute Lennon under the Obscene Publications Act 1964. He feared that the case would open the floodgates and that countless historical artworks depicting nude figures would become subject to censorship.

Instead, Lennon was prosecuted under the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, which prohibits the selling or distributing of "profane, indecent or obscene books, papers, prints, drawings, paintings or representations". In the trial that followed, Schuster cited the example of Picasso's erotic works, which had never been confiscated, and argued that Lennon was being singled out because of his fame.

On April 27, 1970, three weeks into the trial, the gallery won the case.

A planned sequel (Bag Two?) based on the I Ching, was never realized.

“Lennon’s sex life in the medium of lithography is a poignant comment on a modern society. In the last year Lennon has repeatedly attempted to identify himself as an artist beyond Pop music. It has brought ridicule on him and his efforts have been scorned.

The history of lithography has seen a change of emphasis from content to technique and Lennon has taken advantage of this movement to expose a society by exposing his own private life to encourage a more introspective commitment to content by today’s artists who can be so timid. In a society where movement and social change play such an important part, the artist’s need to experiment is not new. Warhol and Rauschenberg have created a pattern. John Lennon is developing this tradition and although he may not be making many friends, he has committed himself to a particular cultural leadership which has always been the position of the artist.”

- London Arts Gallery, press release

Krit launch tomorrow

The inaugural issue of KRIT - a new art and critique zine by Schem R Bader - launches tomorrow at Daniel Faria Gallery in Toronto. 

The first issue is themed Summer Sadness and features contributions from Romas Astrauskas, Schem R Bader, Jubal Brown, Micah Lexier, Lou Losier, Claudia B Manley, Kelly McCray, and Natalie Wood. The issue is designed by Jackson Bailey. 

Pick up a free copy between the hours of two and five pm. 

Daniel Faria Gallery

188 St Helens Ave

June 21st 2-5pm

Gavin Bryars | The Sinking of the Titanic

Gavin Bryars

The Sinking of the Titanic

London, UK: Obscure Records, 1975

12” vinyl LP

Edition size unknown

"A lot of new wave music was coming out at the time, and I was listening to bands like the Flying Lizards—I liked stuff that was a little unusual. There was also a song called “Mozart” by Michael Nyman. The original song title was different [“In Re Don Giovanni”] but he released “Mozart” as a single and it became a huge hit. The album with [The Flying Lizards’] David Cunningham as the leader was also good, it was called Grey Scale. When I went back to my room tired, I’d always listen to stuff like that—that quiet, heart-calming music. Obscure Records, which Brian Eno founded, had many of my favorite artists, including Gavin Bryars. I loved The Sinking of the Titanic. In fact, my grandfather was on the Titanic. He made it home alive, so the music was very personal to me. The second side [“Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”] was amazing, too. And if anything, I was listening to the second side first. At the time, I was doing very tight techno music, so I wanted some quiet at home. That’s how it started—the music I played in my room was ambient.”

- Haruomi Hosono on the Music That Made Him

Dan Graham | Two Parallel Essays

Dan Graham

Two Parallel Essays: Photographs of Motion / Two Related Projects for Slide Projectors

New York City, USA: Multiples, Inc., 1970

12 pp., 27.9 x 17.8 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 1200

An Artists' Book containing writings and diagrams, this slim pamphlet

The two essays included in this slim pamphlet are “Photographs of Motion” and “Two Related Projects for Slide Projectors.” The former is an historical overview on the history of still photography depicting moving subjects, and the latter looks at two of Graham’s own works involving motion photography. 

The booklet was produced for the Artists & Photographs box, which also included works by Christo, Joseph Kosuth, Sol Lewitt, Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol and many others. 

Two Parallel Essays is available from the publisher for $100 US, here.