Live Launch: John Gerrard 'Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017' - a Channel 4 Commission at Somerset House - 20th April, 6-8pm

John Gerrard: Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017

 

Commissioned by Channel 4, in partnership with Somerset House

Live presentation at Somerset House, Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, WC2R

 

Supported by JJ Charitable Trust, Mark Leonard Trust, Ashden Trust and the Western Flag Supporters Circle

 

Live launch: 20 April, 6:30 - 8:30pm

 

Dates: 21 April - 27 April

Times: Daily, 7am - 11pm

Further information

 

Channel 4 and Somerset House launch a new work by John Gerrard presented on a giant LED screen wall in the historic courtyard at Somerset House from 21st to 27th April.

 

Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017 is a new commission by Channel 4 that will be broadcast as a television interruption, breaking into the schedule in short bursts over 24 hours. The broadcast will begin at 9pm on 22nd April, coinciding with their programming around Earth Day, and will continue until 9am on 23rd April.

 

Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017 depicts the site of the 'Lucas Gusher' - the world's first major oil strike - in Spindletop, Texas. Gerrard has painstakingly recreated the site as a digitally-simulated moving image and placed at its centre a simulated flagpole bearing a flag of perpetually-renewing balck smoke. The computer generated Spindletop runs in exact parallel with the real site throughout the year: the sun rising at the appropriate times and the days getting longer according to the seasons.

 

“One of the greatest legacies of the 20th century is not just population explosion or better living standards but vastly raised carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. A new flag attempts to give this invisible gas, this international risk, an image, a way to represent itself. I like to think of it as a flag for a new kind of world order.” John Gerrard

 

The presentation of Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas), 2017 is kindly supported by JJ Charitable Trust, Mark Leonard Trust and Ashden Trust. These three Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts came together in 2011 as the Climate Change Collaboration to support pilot and research projects to find ways of quickly reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Additional support from the Western Flag Supporters Circle.

 

Also on view: John Gerrard's X.Laevis (Spacelab) 2017 at Wellcome Collection until 25 June, 2017


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