BANKSY // Flag, 2006

  • Banksy’s 2006 Flag showing kids raising US flag in war rubble, anti-war street art.

    Banksy, Flag, 2006.

    Offset lithograph in black on silver metallic paper, 50 × 70 cm.
    © Banksy.

    In Flag, Banksy reimagines Joe Rosenthal’s iconic Iwo Jima photograph with a group of urban youths raising the American flag atop a burned-out car. A single sun or moon - printed in silver or gold - casts a mournful glow over the scene, contrasting victory with decay.

     

    The work invites multiple readings: a fractured version of the American Dream, a comment on forgotten communities, or a reflection on the cost of war. Like much of Banksy’s work, children symbolise both innocence and urgency - the future shaped by the failures of the present. 

     

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  • “I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in — like peace and justice and freedom.”

     – Banksy

    Flag (2006) is Banksy’s stark reworking of Joe Rosenthal’s iconic Iwo Jima photograph, replacing soldiers with urban youths and the battlefield with a charred, abandoned car. Where Rosenthal’s image symbolised victory and unity, Banksy’s reinterpretation offers something far more ambiguous — a fractured American Dream, rising out of collapse rather than triumph.
    The silver or gold glow of the sun (or moon) heightens the sense of unease, casting the scene in both beauty and despair. By placing children at the centre, Banksy forces us to confront the inheritance of war, poverty, and neglect, and how future generations are left to rebuild from the ruins.
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