Exhibition Review: Santiago Sierra, Black Flag, DCA

Black Flag is the right thing in the right place at the right time. Santiago Sierra has firmly planted the international symbol of anarchism in the city of Dundee just as the V&A opens with much fanfare across the road. The first thing that hits you when you walk into the gallery space at the DCA is the pair of giant black and white photographs on the wall at the far end. Both are landscape in orientation. Placed one immediately above the other they form a square. At the top is a black flag, small in scale, in the middle of the ice cap at the North Pole. Below is the inverted image of another black flag flying on the snowy land mass at the South Pole. Together these two photographs form a very succinct picture of planet Earth from top to bottom. The whole world is seen compressed, devoid of hierarchy.

On the wall to the right is a grid of twenty photographs arranged in two rows, again one immediately above the other. To accompany the journey along the photographs it is best to first pull on the headphones marked ‘N’ for North. For this mainly photographic exhibition Sierra has also made sound recordings captured on location at both Poles. The sound of ‘silence’ in the north is mellow. A flag flutters in a constantly flowing wind. The photographs take us on a visual journey to the top of the world. A ‘gear’ shot displays all of the tools necessary to venture into extreme frozen conditions set out neatly on the floor before departure. Then via airplanes and helicopters the artist plants his flag before retracing his route. Not before sharing with us a wonderful image of a toilet seat in the arctic with icicles dangling like teeth in the jaws of an alien.

On the opposite wall is another set of twenty photographs telling a similar tale, but this time on a journey to and from the bottom of the Earth to plant another Black Flag. It is strangely comforting to know that the flags were left in place alongside other more traditional flags of nations to disintegrate in time with the fierce snow filled winds. Switching headphones to the ones marked ‘S’, the sound of ‘silence’ in the South is somewhat livelier than that in the North. You sense the presence of humans through the whirring of a wheel and the buffeting of constructed materials in winds that gust and howl. You see that presence too in the washing line full of clothes, on a day when the wind chose not to blow.

In the middle of the gallery is a glass topped vitrine that houses a replica black flag together with maps of the Poles and vinyl records. The neatly presented museum like objects clash a little with the straight black and white photographs and simple sound playing headphones that document Sierra’s protracted anti-capitalist performance. It’s a pity there was no flag to wave in celebration, because the audacity of it all is well worth celebrating.

Sierra’s work was originally made in 2015 and displayed internationally before finding its way to Dundee just a stone’s throw from the three masted Discovery that carried Scott and Shackleton on their first Antarctic expedition more than a century ago. Black Flag flies deliberately in face of the acquisitive tradition of exploration and flag planting on behalf of nation states. In Sierra’s own words the black flag is “something to visually set against the multiple colours of the patriotic cloths”. In a time when right wing nationalism is on the rise across Europe this is a highly provocative action.

Sierra has undertaken a daunting logistical challenge to reach the most extreme landscapes on our planet. He has made an economical statement regarding humanity in transcendence of nationalism. It is poignantly delivered in the city that cast the highest ‘Yes’ vote in favour of Scottish independence. Black Flag raises the question of what nationalism we are prepared to adhere to, if any, in the name of independence? Black Flag flies proudly alongside the good ship V&A a neo-liberal solution for, or distraction from, industrial decline and government austerity. Perhaps the biggest question raised by Black Flag is, what alternative is there to global capitalism that might work for humanity as a whole?

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The exhibition runs until November 25th 2018

Image Credits in sequence of appearance:

North 5, North 6, North 15: Santiago Sierra North Pole Documentation 2015. Ditone archival print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. Courtesy of Santiago Sierra Studio & a/political 

South 13, South 16, South 18: Santiago Sierra South Pole Documentation 2015. Ditone archival print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. Courtesy of Santiago Sierra Studio & a/political