Economics

Jeremy Dean explores the idea of ‘the American dream’ by deconstructing symbols of wealth, patriotism, and power. To make Economics, he took apart an American flag thread by thread. He then reassembled it by tying each strand to a needle superimposed over a list of the top 1,000 stocks of the last 100 years printed to resemble a page in the Wall Street Journal. Contours of the fragmented flag suggest a pair of graphs that demonstrate the disparity in wealth between top 1% earners and the rest of the American population. Peaks and troughs create gaps in the flag and suggest the impact of significant events in American economic history—the Great Depression and tax cuts during the presidency of George W. Bush. Dean’s work presents the nation’s most iconic symbol as two unraveled halves of a whole unable to integrate.

Jeremy Dean

2013

Courtesy of the artist

Thread and pins on board

26 x 32 inches