Maarten Vanden Eynde

019, SORRY NOT SORRY and BILLBOARD SERIES invite you to the inauguration of three new installations in the public space near the 019 building. Ghent based artist Dirk Zoete covers the billboard on the southside of the building with a new drawing, as the second edition of the Billboard Series. The flagpoles on the rooftop are draped with Maarten Vanden Eynde’s Europe: Mutatis Mutandis flags. A giant flagpole finds a new destination next to the bridge over the Handelsdok. The European Flag Proposal by reknown architect Rem Koolhaas will wave over the water. You are very welcome on the auguration of the artworks on January 31, 2016 at 3pm on the parking lot next to the 019 building.

These public interventions are a part of SORRY, NOT SORRY, a street art track initiated by CIRCA, in cooperation with Topocopy, Kapow & 019, comprising murals, graffiti, performances and art installations, using the city as bearer and crossbeam. Billboard Series is a long-term art in public space project by artlead, all things contemporary and 019.

Europe: Mutatis Mutandis is a remake and update of the project Europe: In Varietate Concordia (2006-2014). In 2005, after the referenda on the new European Constitutional Law and the following disappointment about the French and Dutch NO vote, Europe as a concept of unity for freedom and equality came under increasing threat. The recent economic crises and the unprecedented flood of refugees coming to the Europe generated nationalism and the desire to be disconnected from the European Union, instead of a renewed feeling of ‘togetherness’. In times of crises one gets to know his true friends.The series of five flags made in 2006 challenges the official slogan of the European Union, United in Diversity (In Varietate Concordia). The stars are placed on the geographical location of the capitals of the different countries, creating an abstract sky full of stars, braking the uniform circle of stars. On the 9th of may 2006, the official Europe Day, the new European flag was presented through the whole European Union in more than 50 art-institutes. The subsequent editions zoom out more and more and include first all current EU members, than the aspirant members, followed by all the worlds 193 capitals, ending with a clear blue flag with no stars anymore, no more capitals, no more borders. What is left is an open sky, the flag of our blue marble, planet Earth. It questions both the relevance of closed borders and the constant geographical expansion and invites people to think of the possibilities of Utopian Global Governance.

Now, 10 years later, a new flag is added at the beginning of the series, going back in time but possibly also into the future, mutatis mutandis, once the necessary changes have been made. It is a single yellow star in a blue sky and the history of that design and the possibility that it served as inspiration source for the original design of the first European flag, is mind boggling to say the least. In 1810, the flag was used for the first time to represent the self-declared Republic of West Florida in the North America. From 1836 to 1839 it was adopted by the Republic of Texas, a free state that was much bigger than the current State of Texas and reached almost to New Orleans. Subsequently it became the first flag of the Confederates, known as the Bonny Blue flag, when seven southern states seceded from the Union and marked the beginning of the Civil War in America. The Confederate States where against abolition of slavery, which by 1862 became the universally accepted reason for the Civil War. New Orleans housed the biggest slave market in America and by 1860, the majority of the slaves came from the former Kingdom of Kongo. And there history takes a remarkable turn, when King Leopold II of Belgium adopts the flag in 1876 as symbol for his International African Association and two years later also for the International Association of the Congo. In 1885, when he was granted permission to control and rule the Congo by approval of the Berlin Conference, where Africa was divided as a cake by the western powers, it became the official flag of Congo Free State.

After the atrocities that were part of Leopold's brutal rule in the Congo became public and the entire world opposed its continuation, the Kingdom of Belgium agreed to take over the private colony of King Leopold II. They decided to keep the flag, so from 1908 until the independence of Congo in 1960 (!), the flag was the official emblem of the Belgian Congo. Being universally acknowledged as test case for the European Union, Belgium became the first star in the future circle of friends. In 1955 the European flag was officially introduced. The head designer of the flag was Paul Michel Gabriel Lévy, a Belgian journalist and professor who used the design of the finalist Arsène Heitz, to draw the final draft of 12 yellow stars on a blue background. In 1987 Arsène Heitz revealed that his inspiration was the crown of twelve stars of the Woman of the Apocalypse, often found in modern Marian iconography. The link between the Belgian Congo or any other part of the history of the yellow star on a blue background, was never made. Europe: Mutatis Mutandis reconnects to that untold story and reopens the discussion how to implement universal rights of freedom and equality for all mankind.

Maarten Vanden Eynde - europe2006

Maarten Vanden Eynde - europe2008

Maarten Vanden Eynde - europe2010

Maarten Vanden Eynde - europe2012

Maarten Vanden Eynde - europe2014