ABOUT THE SCULPTURE

The artist duo Hesselholdt & Mejlvang is preoccupied with skin colours, how they are categorised and how they are referred to in our society. They have created a work of art as a contribution to the debate about identity, communities, nationalism, and dominance.

Each of these stoneware reliefs is a cast of the Danish flag where the red and white colours have been changed with a skin colour scale ranging from light to dark. Here they are piled up, starting with the darkest colour at the bottom and ending with the lightest colour at the top. This can easily be interpreted as an observation of hierarchical power positions. The work of art is, however, constructed in a way so that the individual flag reliefs are, as a principle, moveable. Consequently, it is possible to change the order to e.g. let the dark colour dominate the light colour – or they may be placed next to each other, thus avoiding a hierarchical placement.

The work of art is an invitation to think about how communities, democratic principles and hierarchies work in the world today.

Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, Stack of Skin Colored Flags, 2017
Stoneware faience, 42 x 76 x 55 cm
The CLAY Collection

Donation from A.P. Møller Foundation