In 1954 Jasper Johns dreamed he was painting a large American flag and shortly afterwards he began to do exactly that. In 2020 Todd Cross dreamed he had cloned himself so many times he no longer knew who he was, and shortly afterwards he began painting a large American flag anyway.

Like so many artists of his generation, Cross employs his clones as studio assistants:

‘My clones are perfect studio assistants. They possess exactly the same skills as myself and they know exactly what I’m talking about when I present them with a project. They immediately set about working towards the realisation of my concept, leaving me, the conceptual artist, with the time I need to think about things. Admittedly, when they start thinking about things I find myself working towards the realisation of their concepts. This is not a problem though. When presented with a project to work on, the concept always seems very familiar, as if it had been my idea all along.’

It’s quite a common phenomenon for artists to produce masterpieces with the aid of their clones. What is rare, really rare, is to do that and maintain authority over these youthful pretenders to the throne. This whole episode throws into question the true identity of the man I interviewed. Was he Todd Cross or a clone? Does it matter? I think not. If it was a clone, I’m sure Cross would have said the same: and if it was Cross, I’m sure the same logic applies.

Regardless of the identity of my interviewee, Todd Cross is, or I suppose, ‘the Cross practice’ are members of a group of artists I like to call the Regressionists. Regressionism is in essence a reaction to the ‘plain pretentious and unengaging and bad’ conceptual video work of the early 21st century. As a method of distracting from the tension these artists are feeling over their futures, they are regressing to the domain of Pop Art, to a safer, more familiar place, as a defence to their millennial conceptual video anxiety.

Why Pop Art? Well, as members of the millennial generation, these artists’ high school days coincided with the introduction of Pop Art to the school syllabus. They received Pop Art as their dose of ‘modern art’, just as the children of the 1980s were taught impressionism, those of the 90s post-impressionism and those of the 2050s most probably ‘plain pretentious and unengaging and bad’ conceptual video.

Cross would argue that his art is not merely a preoccupation with images experienced during childhood, but an attempt to recapture the link between art and popular culture which was forged by images of this period. Hence Cross sees himself not as a ‘Regressionist’, but a ‘Neo-Pop Artist.’

Although his ‘Pears and Stripes’ series is an homage to the Pop Artist, Jasper Johns and is, essentially, an allusion to Johns’ ‘Flag’ series (produced throughout the latter half of the 20th century), Cross stresses that Pears and Stripes also aims to highlight the major political developments experienced in America between the latter half of the 20th century and the present day.

This period of development – referred to in political commentary as the ‘Brand War’ – proved to have a profound effect on Cross’ education and the subsequent development of his career.(1)

In May 2021 Cross finds himself on the brink of his debut solo show at the Pear Museum. The show, titled, The Pears and Stripes features a series of works which leaves the viewer in no doubt as to the identity of the corporate power leading the way in the Brand War. The paintings are glowing tributes to the flag that symbolises Pear’s endorsement of American pride.(2)

Unfortunately the painting, Flag 2019 will not be exhibited in the show. It is currently undergoing reconstruction after an unsavory incident during the opening evening of the Pear Museum in March. In the latter stages of the evening architectural critic, Kermit Brine, inadvertently removed Cross’s Flag painting from the wall of the first-floor gallery and proceeded to acquire a security official’s portable announcement handset, before scaling the garden’s flag pole, fixing the painting to the top of the mast and offering a rendition of his personalised version of ‘The Pear Spangled Banner’ which reverberated through the museum speaker system during the observation of four minutes, thirty-three seconds silence in commemoration of the 29th anniversary of the passing of John Cage.

The show opens to the public on Saturday 8th May and runs until Saturday 5th June. Admission to clones will be half the advertised price.(3)

Susan Sinden is currently preparing for the launch of her post-digital media studio, Pear PD, and online marketing agency, Pear Worldwide.

1. In 2008 Cross began his secondary school education in Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School District, which in 2011 became PearSchool District III.
On acquiring the district, Pear Corp. (the result of the Cyclone-Apple merger of 2011) immediately set about the installation of its newly-developed online cloning system, in the district’s existing Apple PowerSchool computer network. Superintendent of Schools, Paul J. Saxton endorsed the new system saying: 'With PearSchool we’re making a good situation even better.'
So, in their third year, Cross and his classmates found themselves in the midst of what would prove the most potent youth culture phenomenon in American history: a phenomenon which would alter the fundamental values of American society forever: Pear Online Cloning.
Having installed the system, Pear encouraged students to begin ‘cloning in the comfort of their classrooms’ in order to ‘produce perfect professional partners of the future.’
On cloning himself for the first time in 2011 Cross, as a young artist, signed a contract with Pear which granted him a said number of exhibitions in Pear Museum (on its completion) and considerable exposure in Pear Journal of Art. In return Pear was afforded the right to censor and claim revenue on works produced by Cross and his clone(s).
2. The latest flag, the thirty-eighth, has fifty pears, representing the fifty school districts now belonging to the corporation. In 2011, it was agreed that for each new school district, a new pear would be added to the canton. It was decided not to increase the number of stripes.
3. (When accompanied by the registered cloner)