Defending the Flag

Defending the Flag (2026) is a performance installation. It consists of a veteran, dressed in fatigues, bearing a prop M4 carbine rifle; a US flag; a flagpole and a safe. When the artwork is performed, the veteran stands guarding the flag. The flagpole, guard, and safe are in a gallery, along with other works and the audience is free to move about the gallery while viewing the art.

If viewers get too close to the guard or to the flag, he forcefully moves towards them hand extended and tells them to “HALT! Stand back from the perimeter. I’m defending the flag. The flag of the United States must be respected at all times.”

At the end of each day that the work is activated, the flag is ceremonially folded and placed into the safe. The guard then exits the gallery, leaving the flagpole and the safe.

Commenting on the work, art critic Max Blue (KQED) recently wrote, “I was terrified.” and went on to discuss the shock of the threat of power embodied by an armed soldier in a gallery.

The artwork was commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the exhibition Dread Scott: The Body Politic. It premiered in September 2026.