B-1010 for 2010 : this month, Unité (Belgian flag), a proposal by Cédric Noël (in : the Bulletin, July-August issue)

This month, we present a proposal by Cédric Noël, a French artist living in Brussels.

The postcard represents Unité, a proposal originally conceived as a flag or, rather, as the reconfiguration of a flag. As such, it was shown in the 58th exhibition at Brussels-Congrès which followed the launch of our Park 58 project (see www.park58.be).
The brownish/greenish composition, which appears to be monochromatic, was created by mixing the three colours of the Belgian flag in their respective proportions. The indeterminate hue of the resulting field— neutral, camouflage-like and unostentatious— leads to a multiplicity of possible readings and interpretations. Depending on one’s viewpoint, it might be seen as a symbol of the artificial, understated character of a particular country’s national identity (in this case, Belgium’s) or, conversely, as the very essence of an intrinsically adaptable, evolving, organic vision of a nation’s representation, apprehended as a human construction able to re-invent itself in sensible, unpretentious, matter-of-fact ways.
The polysemy of Cedric Noël’s proposal is particularly relevant now, as Belgium prepares to celebrate its national day (July 21). Noël’s proposal also serves as an interesting counterpoint to alternative flag proposals, made in the framework of our B-1010, be-DIXTIEN’s project (www.b-1010.be).