Silkscreen Prints
The FLAG series are representations of social Emblems made by appropriating books from the artists’ own collection. A montage of reproduction of radical philosophy, popular novels, science and art books that have informed Mitrentse’s own artistic Identity the last 15 years.
These statements on the cultural representation, expression, and fetishisation of political ideas, explore relationships between the social purpose and cultural significance of ‘the Book’ as a foreboding container for the distribution of knowledge. They allude to the mystique of a personal institution, questioning the fragility of transmission of knowledge in the current Educational and socio-political persecution as it is experienced post global economic crisis.
Who manages and has access to the repositories of knowledge and information in our society? The Emblems are calling us to interpret various ‘believe systems’ of humanity, symbolised within them, while allow viewers to re- contextualize their individuality by visualizing their own idiosyncratic bibliographic histories.
Christina Mitrentse, March 2011