The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) has acquired Trinket, the large, custom-made flag by Chicago-born artist William Pope.L that was the centerpiece of an exhibition at the museum in 2015. The gallery Vielmetter Los Angeles announced the news of the acquisition on Instagram on July 7 and MOCA confirmed the acquisition with ARTnews.
The long period between the initial exhibition and acquisition of the 16-by-45-foot flag was mostly due to logistics. “The reason we’re able to do it now is because Pope.L thought about the work in an evolving way and eventually came to think that there could be multiple ways that this work be installed or presented,” said MOCA senior curator Bennett Simpson, who also curated the 2015 exhibition. “The money side of it wasn’t the issue with this acquisition, and we didn’t do any special fundraising campaign for the acquisition.”
Trinket was made specifically for the 2015 exhibition showcasing new and recent large-scale installations by Pope.L. In addition to the custom flag, the performance and sculpture work involved theatrical lights and four large-scale industrial fans — the type used almost exclusively on Hollywood film sets to create wind or rain effects. The high-powered air from the fans caused the 51-star flag to eventually fray and fall apart over the course of the 14-week exhibition. MOCA described the effect as “a potent metaphor for the rigors and complexities of democratic engagement and participation.”
A version of Trinket was also featured in Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the 2015 BET Awards.
While MOCA had been interested in acquiring Trinket soon after the exhibition, the large specialty fans repeatedly came up as an issue. In addition to their high price (Simpson would not specify the amount beyond “It’s a lot of money”), they are limited to one vendor located in the San Fernando Valley. “You can’t just buy them at the Home Depot,” gallery owner Susanne Vielmetter told ARTnews.
Simpson said the necessity of the industrial fans to Pope.L’s original vision of Trinket came with other curatorial considerations, such as audience capacity, insurance, and safety. “Wherever you do this, the building is full of moving air, and you can’t really have other works of art in the same space,” he said. “It’s not like you can do an installation of Trinket in a group show.”
The acquisition of Trinket was able to go forward after Pope.L came up with two alternative ways to install the immersive work in addition to the original concept shown in the Geffen Contemporary space. The first alternative was the large flag folded in the same manner presented at military funerals and displayed in a plexiglass box. The second alternative was installing the flag on a long wall in a shredded and ripped state. “And only one of them involved renting these huge fans and setting up the building to run the huge fans and have the flag fray over time,” Simpson said.
The museum’s acquisition agreement for Pope.L’s work means if MOCA does plan on installing the flag with the fans again for 15 weeks (or another time period), the fans would be rented, Trinket will fall apart and those materials will be disposed. “Therefore, if we want to stage it again, we would have to have start with a ‘new flag’,” Simpson said. “And that’s fine. The actual piece of fabric is kind of like an exhibition copy, in a way.”
One way to understand MOCA’s acquisition of Pope.L’s Trinket, as both of an object and a concept, is to consider how museums have begun to acquire performance art. “How do you acquire things that are impermanent, that are ephemeral, that change over time?,” Simpson said. “How do you take care of something that is, that will be different every time you decide to display it? Or show it or share it? I think that there’s a different answer for every work, there’s no kind of over-arching, right way to do something like that.”
“We just basically acquired the rights to do this again, and again, and again, according to a set of agreed upon rules or guidelines.”
Simpson said being able to finally acquire Trinket was an important opportunity for MOCA to add a major work from its exhibition program into its permanent collection, especially given that the show did not publish a catalog or travel to other institutions. “It’s like double dipping,” he said. “It affirms the museum’s work in multiple ways. It makes me proud of the museum, makes me proud of the work that we do.”
Trinket was conceived by Pope.L in 2008 after press coverage over politicians wearing American flag lapel pins, and whether that act demonstrated or signaled their patriotism in the right way. The massive size of the work is the opposite of a lapel pin, and its title refers to something small and cheap. For Simpson, the fact that the American flag continues to shift in meaning with each national election and events like the insurrection on January 6, means Trinket will continue to be meaningful in the future.
“Pope.L talks about this work as a time-based work,” Simpson said. “That it’s a kind of duress that is happening in time, and that the flag changes and falls apart, it changes over time, from the pressure of the winds. I think that’s beautiful and poetic but it will always be the case with this with this artwork. There will always be an artwork that demonstrates change.”