Santiago Sierra Black Flag

Santiago Sierra is a Spanish artist who has carried out provocative actions around the world for the past two decades. This exhibition is the UK premiere of one of his most ambitious undertakings to date, which takes the form of an immersive photographic and sound installation documenting the process and performance of planting the universal symbol of the anarchist movement - the black flag - at the two most extreme points on earth: the North and South Poles.

On 14 April 2015, Santiago Sierra completed the first part of Black Flag at the geographic North Pole, latitude 90° N. Eight months later, on 14 December 2015, the final instalment of Black Flag was completed, using the substantial and permanent infrastructure of Antarctica. The flag was planted and documented at the geographic South Pole, latitude 90° S. This is a collaboration between Santiago Sierra Studio and a/political with special thanks to Lutz Henke.

The catalogue exposes the documentations of the 2 journeys and researches around Sierra’s Work and symbolic of the black flag by Becky Haghpannah-Shirwan, Mike Watson, Uri Gordon, Claire Warrior and forewords by Philip Howe.

I wanted to highlight the scientific aspect of the expeditions, with a minimalist design. The composition give a major role to the pictures and allows them to talk between each other. The reader can then connect Sierra’s action with History of Art, and understand the Humanistic vision of the artist. Linking his work with Malevich’s Black Square, or Piero Manzoni’s Socle du Monde was essential to emphasize the place of Black Flag in the continuation of History of Art.