Gianni Jetzer

Flags for Venice

31 May – 5 June 2011

Castello, Venice, Italy

The site-specific project utilized the Biennale’s conflicted celebration of unity and nationalism to shift the use of a flag away from a symbol of national or institutional identity and gear it towards a new representation of fictional groups, peoples, or communities. Twelve international artists were invited to design a flag that represents a new group–real or imagined. The resulting flags delete the physical and mental boundaries belonging to real communities and invent new typologies for individuals as a collective body.

The project was installed in the byway between the Giardini and the Arsenale, the two main venues of the Venice Biennale–a key place to be visited by thousands of professionals and public visitors during the Biennale’s opening days. 

An initiative by Istituto Svizzero di Roma and Swiss Institute, New York, in the byways of Venice curated by Salvatore Lacagnina and Gianni Jetzer.

Jonathan Horowitz, Thomas Julier, Daniel Knorr, Ahmet Öğüt, Lisa Oppenheim, Mai-Thu Perret, Luigi Presicce, Rob Pruitt, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Mika Tajima, Danh Vo