I saw Doubtful Sound at the Baltic this weekend. Perpetual Canon 2004 (shown above) is a very powerful piece. Sixty silver-plated instruments have been flattened and then suspended in a circle around a single light bulb. The process robs the trumpets and tubas, etc., of their music and replaces it with a cacophony of shadows. Go and see it.
Kevin Earl Taylor (detail)
Flags are already symbolism-heavy — but Burak Arikan’s Bored-er seems to change my perception of each of these banners by distancing them from their nations. My first impression was of the short-sighteness of nation states — but that’s not it at all… there’s something about reducing these symbols down, and at the same time dissolving their associated political borders, that reminds us that we are, no matter what shit we allow into our heads to contradict this truth, all equal.
Making Art from War. Part 1.
