Exhibition

The Flagmaker, new work by Matt Clark

23 Jan 2010 – 21 Feb 2010

Event times

Open Fri-Sun 11-6

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Gallery Primo Alonso

London, United Kingdom

Address

Travel Information

  • Bus: 26,48,55
  • Tube: Old Street or Bethnal Green
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About

‘I am a simple man I am a forgotten man. My mind is not wasted as I make flags and I wait for a time when I can leave with my flags to find a country that will take them. To produce such things from such a small place as this, I feel is as honourable as any profession any man has made for himself. This place is dank with close walls; only my mind can travel me outside to where my honourable profession would be of any merit. I am a flag maker for a people who do not need flags. I can create a nation with a flurry of needlework, and a composition of ideals. ‘Why?' you ask, ‘when all nations have flags do you continue in such a way that would make all current nations unrecognisable, why change their flags?' let me tell you this; I see no nation here. Here in the underground where I make these objects nothing is recognisable to those who dwell above. No nation can call this place its own, yet I can tell little other difference between down here and up there. Here, at this juncture, is a nation which belongs to the ants, here is a nation of rainless dust and stolen light. Here is an immoral place, ugly and rotten. I can little imagine a life where days exist without the imagination of what they must look like, where light is natural. My thoughts are of grass, whilst claustrophobia rules in my veins, this place is heartless. This is a place where rain comes from heaven and would only blot the page in my thoughts. Smoke lingers for days, and in turn, will turn the pages I write mustard yellow and relieving my lungs from natural breath.' Matt Clark Matt Clark depicts characters and their environments, drawn from his own imagined narratives merged with borrowed documents, unrealised projects and other fictions. For the residency at Primo Alonso the work will revolve around a character simply known as ‘The Flag Maker', a man who has been underground for a thousand years, who attempts to find a use for his trade. Clark's installation will explore the psychosis of the flag maker in relation to many of his unrealised projects meant for a time when he leaves the underground to meet what he imagines as the other underground. The history of the gallery will also come into question as he explores its former use as computer repair shop known as Madarin as a front for a money printing factory shut down in a police raid in 2005.

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