Art Story

Flag portrays a group of children and young adults standing triumphantly atop a burned-out car, raising the American flag. The figures represent disenfranchised urban youth - resilient and/or defiant.
The entire image is drained of color, except for a single, powerful accent: a large silver sun or moon. This lone touch of color casts a quiet, haunting presence over the scene, imbuing it with a melancholic, almost mournful atmosphere.
In Flag, as in much of Banksy's work, meaning drifts in ambiguity - youth chasing the American Dream, or perhaps a stark elegy to war's cost, forgotten ghettos, or distant glory like the moon landing...
This piece is a modern echo of Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, captured on February 23, 1945. It exists in two versions: Flag (Silver) and Flag (Gold), with the latter being released in 2007, differing only in the metal color accent.