The Case of
Burning an Isreali Flag
This writing and the piece are only intended for my personal website.
The Case of Burning a Flag; State of Reiterative Art
The lurid blues versus the white; flutters the fabric against the plain blue of the sky. The unsettling struggle of it in the jolting flames, is the scene of the observer. Here and now is a flag burning in the freshness of the blue sky. The blue of the fabric is not quite the tone of the blue in the sky. Blue against blue on white, or any other way around. This is an Israeli flag burning.
Empty of any presence and clueless of time or location, the video is literarily, an Israeli flag that is burning, from start to the end. One might not give much attention and ignore the scene to surpass to another one; but to give in and watch the video is to dedicate the mind into speculations of the usual WH suspicions. The WH do not lead anywhere; back to the first place of conviction, this is an Israeli flag burning which carries a sort of symbolism. Symbolism that involves the context of opposition and a disdain motive. This display is neither in the context of opposition nor functions with disdain motive. The artist bio and statement are presented as a part of the aesthetic, in which it explicitly communicates his position: “an unbiased ground of the observer,” and his motive: “to ontologically execute the complexity of this social-political phenomenon in the context of the artist’s inevitable consequential connection to the event.”
The image of an Israeli flag burning is associated with a current conflict regarding the legitimacy of the state of Israel in the middle east. The conflict has lasted for more than five decades but its history goes back a couple thousand years. This is an Arab Jewish conflict, combined with the intention of an artist from Iran. as convoluted as it is, the reiteration of such phenomenon, in the context of an Iranian artist, is an invitation of investigation to the labyrinth of the conflict. Unbridled and in the void of the mundane. Neither abstraction nor expression; the minimal act of pointing to a complex phenomenon which is in an unconventional connection with the life of the author. Symbolism is a naïve perception of the piece and is a repellant report of the subtle historical layers. The concept is simple but is deep-rooted in historical relations and unspeakable cultural references. The video of the flag is first presented on the artist’s website. Contextually, the personal presentative quality of the artist’s website, limits the attention of the observer to the biographical connection of the author with the event. The event links its ontology to the biography and the stance of the artist on this political event. The trajectory leads to results contradicting what the symbolism represents. The driving motive for a reiterative piece as such is the question of why; why this phenomenon and not another one? The answer lays in the folds of artist’s connection with it which takes the concept beyond the linear historical points.
The last Friday of Ramadan in Tehran is reminiscent of news reports of Quds day; alarmed to hear the results of a worldwide insurrection in support for the Palestinian nation. Quds day was first declared by Ruhollah Khomeini in August 7, 1979 as an anti-Zionist day of protest. Reluctant of historical facts and free from political cause, one observes the burning of an Israeli flag. Yet enjoys the glimmering sun, shining through the sheer fabric of the curtain. Back to the TV, the news is still reporting live. Friday is the weekend in Iran. The details of how this day goes by are the missing link to what it means to watch a flag of another nation burning. The reiteration of the phenomenon of the Israeli flag burning is the reiteration of what this event means geopolitically as well as what it reminiscences culturally.
The Case of Burning a Flag is the first piece of Reiterative Art.
About Reiterative Art:
Reiterative Two
Reiterative Three