FAN FLAG

A Collaborative project by Raafat Ishak and Sean Loughrey

This project was created in the spirit of coincidence, inspired by the Egyptian flag and the St Kilda football club, it developed into a collective excursion, exploring the multiple interpretations that are associated with nonrepresentation.

The second in the series.
The work was concieved as an evolving collaboration involving our current studio practice and discussions on Art and history.
As a background red black and white stripes were painted onto the wall, these represented a common interest in this instance they represented the Eygptian flag and the colours of the StKilda football club. They were meant as popular abstract means within which the personal and subjective come to the for. The object itself was created by exchanging a peice of timber and adding to it over a period of time

Fan Flag

Fan Flag is a collaborative and continuous project by Sean Loughrey and Raafat Ishak.

A sculptural component is central to this project and is in continuous construction. This involves each artist, in turn, adding to and subtracting from its appearance. It has no final resolution, it remains in a state of flux. Its existence is contextualised during its inception in a gallery space, occupying the central stripe of a tricolour flag-, black, white and red . Horizontally, it is the flag of Egypt. Vertically, it represents the StKilda football club. Either way it is abstract. The horizon an endless desert, the vertical humiliating.

The central object attempts to amplify the unwillingness of abstract values to encompass representational aspirations. Hence, it is proposed that this becomes a site for great relief. It is a site for the expression of political will, indifference and the privacy of self determination.

The collaborative aspect is at once, an agreement between the artists, but further, it is intended to exaggerate the capabilities of abstract means to instigate a relative discourse.

Sean Loughrey and Raafat Ishak

August 1998

Fan Flag, a collaborative installation with Sean Loughrey at Stripp in 1997, featured large horizontal stripes of black, white, and red painted on the wall. Read vertically (and in its local Melbourne football-mad context), the flag signifies the St. Kilda football club; read horizontally, it signifies Egypt. In the centre of the flag, a white abstract sculpture reminiscent of the abstract constructions of Tadin's Complex Corner Relief of 1915 or El Lissitzkys 1919 Prouns was composed in a collaborative manner, each artist adding a geometric block. As well as reflecting the dual identities of the flags, the abstract sculpture also suggested a mode of construction in process, an ongoing discourse conducted in abstract terms. Presented again in 1998 at lst Floor, the artists replaced the sculpture with a projected video image of it, further emphasising the process of abstraction.

Comments art/text#67 1999, Raafat Ishak: personal archive by D.J.Huppatz

to David Rozetsky

Exhibition Proposal for small room- 1st Floor

Fan Flag

Fan Flag is a collaborative and continuous project by Sean Loughrey and
Raafat Ishak.

A sculptural component is central to this project and is in continuous constructrion. This involves each artist, in turn, adding to and substracting from its appearance. It has no final resolution, it remains in a state of flux. Its existence is contextualised during its inseption, in a gallery space, occupying the central stripe of a tri color flag; black, white and red.
The installation is integral to the collaborative project whereby both artists work simultaneously to present the object within the referential attributes of the flag. Horizontally, it is the flag of Egypt. Vertically, it represents the StKilda football club. Either way, it is abstract. The horizon an endless desert, the vertical humiliating.
The central object attempts to amplify the unwillingness of abstract values to encompass representational aspirations. Hence, it is proposed that this becomes a site for great relief. It is a site for the expression of political will, indifference and the privacy of self determination.
The collaborative aspect is at once, an agreement between the artists, but further, it is intended to exagurate the capabilities of abstract means to instigate a relative discourse.

Fan Flag 6, 2006