wind and weather, 2021

Photographs of white clouds in blue sky printed on flag fabric are hoisted on existing flagpoles in public space. As part of the series of my “Archive of immaterial Monuments”, the playfully exaggerated recursive work “Wind and Weather” puts flags of standard sizes which depict what moves them in public space. The play with the ambivalence of the visual language of the flag as a strong referential artifact of identity and a simple bearer of a picture. Beyond the formal play, the artistic appropriation of these flags suggest new readings and discourse on belonging, destiny, identity, and territorial demarcation, identity. Are the traditional roles of flags in public space undermined by the motif of clouds in the sky? How are the interpreted? Who will summon under these new flags?

The art historian Lara Bader writes:
According to their function, flags mark affiliations of different kinds as well as special messages. But instead of symbolic motifs, the flags in the installation Wind und Wetter (2021) show views of the sky photographed by Chili Seitz. These are similar, but are each individual, unique snapshots of clouds drifting through a blue sky. In the wind they become moving images. The views contradict the originally military-patriarchal gesture of power of showing the flag, after all they depict what cannot be conquered territorially by humans. The artist occupies masts that have already been installed and counteracts the hegemonic messages that are otherwise attached at this point by showing what is already there. It doesn't add anything new to the place, but rather draws attention to the always given: wind and weather. The locations of the wandering installation are always places with farsightedness. There, the mostly local identification signs are replaced by views of the sky, the motif of which is familiar to everyone. They don't exclude anyone - quite the opposite, because the everydayness of the sight marks everyone as a citizen of the world.