This catalog was created following the exhibition Flaga, held at the Franco Noero Gallery in 2002. On the occasion of his first solo show in Italy, Simon Starling creates a project that can be read as a sort of link with the point of departure, a return to the origin. The intentionally performative aspect that leads to the realization of the exhibition in the gallery is very strong: having set the Turin city as a starting point, the artist embarks on a journey aboard an old F.I.A.T. 126, model produced in Turin in the early 1970s. He will go to Poland, where the production of the small car continued from 1975 to 2000 with the contribution of some mechanical modifications. Here a number of original parts of the car will be replaced with spare parts of the later Polish model. The final destination of this process will be Turin, where the 'new' F.I.A.T. 126 in two colors will be hung from the wheels in the gallery, as a trophy of a successfully completed mission. You will have an aerial view of the car, at the same time map and flag, aimed at bridging the time and space between two objects created in very different environments and in geographically remote situations.
Author: Simon Starling
Title: Flaga
Publisher: Galleria Franco Noero
Year: 2002
Language: English, Italian, Polish
Specifications: softcover, plastic envelope, colour illustrations