Saturday 18 September 2010

Will Kwan...fliags at the Scandinavian Hotel


Flame Test by artist Will Kwan...fliags at the Scandinavian Hotel, Liverpool.
The Scandinavian Hotel, which has been closed since the 1980s, will be open to visitors throughout the Biennial for screenings of a series of video art.
Spanish artist Cristina Lucas’s film, Touch and Go, features local people who used to work in now redundant industries.





Hong Kong-born artist Will Kwan has created an installation of 36 banners made from news agency photographs of flag burning protest around the world.

They hang on the front of the Scandinavian Hotel, next to Liverpool's Chinese Arch.

Lorenzo Fusi, Biennial curator, said the art work can be read on many levels, depending on where you are viewing it.

He said: "The idea is that from a distance it will appear to be a very cosmopolitan building that is all-accepting of different nations.

"When you get closer to it, you can see the flames on the flags and closer still you realise they are photographs taken of flags actually being burnt at different times in history at different places in the world."

Images used for the art work, called Flame Test, have been taken from the archives of Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse and other news agencies.