Untitled (Fried and Suspended Flag), 2024
nylon flag, egg, seasonings, steel frame and hardware
Presented in the group exhibition Flags: A Group Show at Paula Cooper Gallery
New York Times: Flag-Waving Takes on New Meaning at Paula Cooper’s Gallery
Bridging sculpture and performance, rethinking quotidian materials, and blurring notions of authorship, Fried and Suspended Flag emerged from a performance in which the public participated in the act of making. Taking the shape of a barbecue, a social formation in which the boundaries between performer and participant are dissolved, American flags are collectively battered in egg yolk, seasoned, and cooked in oil. The flags are a canvas transformed and made anew through quotidian, improvisational, and collective mark making. After the performance the flags are suspended in custom steel structures, the visceral and fleshy palimpsest imbued with haptic and corporeal resonance. Echoing the strategies of Contextualism and social practice, Fried and Suspended Flag is a sculpture made from the remains of a collective action using a material vocabulary of incorporating the residue of the everyday.
