#White Flag
#BandieraBianca
For two months now, Italians had to print and to fill out a paper form provided by the government, called "Autocertificazione" (self-certification).
In this form the citizen had to declare where he lived, where he was going to and for what reason. If the information provided were proved to be wrong or inexact, citizens could be fined up to 5.000€.
As Italy is stepping into the reopening of most commercial activities (May 4th), the self-certification forms have reached their 8th version's rework, generating confusion and exhaustion in the population.
The Autocertificazione will certainly remain a symbol in Italian's memories of the 2020 spring.
Inspired by Jasper Johns' "Flag" (1954), this work represents a way of trying to make an icon out of this simple sheet of paper everyone of us had to look for, download, print and fill out every time we had to go shopping, each and every time we wanted to have a brief walk during the lockdown.
"Johns noted that using a recognizable image took care of a great deal for him because he didn’t have to design it. He made this work by combining panels, paint, and encaustic—a mixture of pigment and melted wax that captured the paint’s drips, smears, and brushstrokes. Beneath the flag’s familiar stripes, we can make out a collage of newspaper scraps whose dates locate this commonplace symbol within a particular moment." MOMA
#WhiteFlag represents a sort of kind surrender to Italian bureaucracy as we slowly are going to get our lives back, never forgetting this vertigo we have lived through all together as a community.
Thank you.
