Western Flag

From September 8th to 15th, passers-by could admire an art installation consisting of a black cube with an LED screen on Hamburg's town hall market on which you could see an abandoned landscape with a waving flag of black smoke! This stunning work of art by John Gerrard is called "Western Flag". It depicts the town of Spindletop in Texas, in which the first major oil boom took place in 1901.

PRG has been working with the renowned artist Gerrard for several years and has supported him in various international projects in recent years. From February to April 2019, the artwork was shown in Palm Springs during ten weeks, California, and in 2017 in front of Somerset House in London, where PRG also provided technical support. John Gerrard worked with the event service provider for the first time in 2014.

On behalf of the artist, PRG installed a large LED wall in front of New York's Lincoln Center on which his works were shown. Gerrard was thus able to benefit from PRG's know-how and event technology in all projects and convey his message as a huge work of art to the very interested audience.

The art installation was also welcomed with great interest in Hamburg, where it was invited and curated by Dirck Möllmann for his public art program HAMBURG MASCHINE, 2018–20, for the pilot project Stadtkuratorin Hamburg supported by the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media as part of the program Kunst im öffentlichen Raum. The flag, visualized in smoke, is intended to draw attention to the environmental impact of global carbon dioxide emissions. For eight days, this digital picture could be seen day and night on the 80 square meter LED screen in Hamburg. PRG was commissioned with the design and construction. The design was carried out in the Hamburg and Vienna offices, as well as PRG Hamburg's in-house carpenter's workshop, in collaboration with the Special Constructions team, which then realized this project together.

Sander van der Hoeven (Project Manager PRG): "This construction not only consists of an LED wall, but also had to be very meticulous to ensure that it was not going to be too high from the (lower) edge, to avoid for people to see that it was suspended on a scaffolding.

The LED screen consisted of ROE Visual MC-07-H modules. With a total height of the LED wall of 9.60 meters and a width of 8.40 meters, the construction was covered with fabric-on the sides to create a seamless black cube.

The artist John Gerrard is thrilled about the international cooperation with PRG: "I have already worked with PRG on several projects ... that was very good and everything worked really well!”

John Gerrards art project Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas), 2017, at Rathausmarkt Hamburg, Germany in 2019 was curated by Dirck Möllmann for HAMBURG MASCHINE / pilot project Stadtkuratorin.

The program HAMBURG MASCHINE / pilot project Stadtkuratorin Hamburg is supported by the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media as part of the program Kunst im öffentlichen Raum.
 

Unfortunately, we were informed about the sad news concerning Dirck Möllmann, city curator of HAMBURG MASCHINE, who passed away after a serious illness. He was the driving force behind the art project "Western Flag" by John Gerrard in Hamburg. We would like to express our deep sympathy and sincere condolences to his family.