The Angel
Newspaper clipping and pin badge.
2011
The work came about as a confluence between two items - a newspaper clipping and a pin badge which joins the Ulster Banner with the Israeli Star of David flag. The Belfast Telegraph newspaper article is about the politician Nelson McCausland as Culture Minister advocating that the Belfast Queens' Festival should take a more pro-Isreali stance. This struck me as being out of place for a minister, to be making such politicised assertions about what an arts organisation should be doing. It also underpinned the seemingly odd sympathies towards the state of Israeli by some in the Unionist community, as evidenced by the flying of the Israeli flag in parts of Northern Ireland and the pin badge. These sympathies if followed to their strangest points present peculiar and conspiratorial connections with fundamental religion, current cultural politics and the second coming of christ. It seemed to offer me an oddly skewed glimpse into the politico-spiritual.
The pin badge served a useful device to pin the clipped new-sheet to the wall where it seems to hover.
Included in:
VIGIL | STAR. Aliceday Gallery Brussels. Solo show. 2011