Galerie Lelong
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Art fairs
  • News
  • Events
  • Gallery
  • Paris
Menu
Andy Goldsworthy: Red Flags
Galerie Lelong Exhibitions, 31 March - 7 May 2022

Andy Goldsworthy: Red Flags

Past exhibition
  • Press Release
  • Installation Views
  • Works
  • Artist
  • News
  • Press Release

    Opening Thursday, March 31, 2022, 6:00pm – 7:00pm

    Artist talk: Saturday, April 23, 2022, 11:00am in the gallery and on Zoom

    Galerie Lelong & Co., New York is pleased to announce the opening of Andy Goldsworthy: Red Flags, previously exhibited for Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center in the month of September 2020. For this exhibition, Red Flags (2020) has been recontextualized in the gallery space, creating a new understanding in the process. Red Flags will be accompanied by two film works originating from the piece.

    During his visit to Rockefeller Center in November 2019, Goldsworthy observed the U.S. state flags flying in place of the customary flags that represent the countries of the United Nations. In response, he proposed to replace these with flags colored with earth from each state. Having worked for many years with red earth found near his home in Scotland, he was aware of the remarkable staining qualities that result in vibrant and permanent colors. While red earth is a familiar material, the artist also considered the significance of the material in the context of a flag as most often flags denote land that was fought over. Goldsworthy has also referred to red earth as the earth’s veins, its iron content being the same reason our blood is red. According to the artist when proposing the work, “Collectively I hope they will transcend borders. The closeness of one flagpole to another means that in certain winds the flags might overlap in a continuous flowing line. My hope is that these flags will be raised to mark a different kind of defense of the land. A work that talks of connection and not division.”  

    With the arrival of the pandemic, the project at Rockefeller Center was delayed by several months. The September 2020 unveiling of Red Flags witnessed the flags both still and moving during a period of uncertainty. Goldsworthy said in advance of the installation: “Red Flags may not have been conceived as a response to recent events, but it is now bound up with the pandemic, lockdown, division and unrest.” said the artist. “However, I hope that the flags will be received in the same spirit with which all the red earths were collected—as a gesture of solidarity and support.”

    A set of 50 flags will hang vertically in a linear form along the walls of the gallery. As the viewer walks this line, different qualities of red emerge, referencing the embedded layers of the landscape and the people who have gone before. The line is a constant investigation in Goldsworthy’s practice, and it appears once more, with the flags becoming a single flowing work of canvas, earth, color, stillness, movement, and humanity. The original reds of the flags have also been changed by the weather conditions they experienced; an additional layer hidden but always present. By examining the contexts of flags and their connections to land and geography, their inherent and potential meanings are evoked in these varying qualities of red earths.

    Accompanying the flags are two film works that are informed by or evoke the passage of time, a central theme of Goldsworthy’s art. The first film is a compilation of each flag flown and filmed at his studio throughout the pandemic’s confinement. The movement of the flags—sometimes calm and slow, sometimes furiously waving—brings opposing feelings of peace and distress. The second film captures a flag stained with earth from all 50 states of the U.S. flown in Scotland from November 3 to 4, 2020: a period beginning with the U.S.’s Election Day and ending as presidential results were being released. To date, the flag remains flying and will only be taken down by the artist at the next election. In this specific event and in his overarching practice, Goldsworthy notes our heightened awareness of time; a provoked and abrupt change in our minds set against the everyday reality of time steadily passing in nature.

    In commemoration of Earth Day, the artist will be in conversation with Brett Littman, director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum and curator of Frieze Sculpture 2020, on Saturday, April 23, 2022, in the gallery.

  • Installation Shots
  • Works
  • Artist
    • Andy Goldsworthy

      Andy Goldsworthy

  • News
    • Andy Goldsworthy

      Andy Goldsworthy

      New video on "Red Flags" (2020) May 4, 2022

      Filmed at Galerie Lelong & Co., New York

      View More
    • Galerie Lelong: Dialogues

      Galerie Lelong: Dialogues

      Andy Goldsworthy with Brett Littman April 23, 2022
      Saturday, April 23, 2022
       
      Watch recording here

       

      View More
    • Andy Goldsworthy

      Andy Goldsworthy

      Peter's Fold, 2022 March 31, 2022

      Yorkshire Sculpture Park
      West Yorkshire, England
      Site-specific commission

      View More
    • Andy Goldsworthy

      Andy Goldsworthy

      Hanging Stones February 24, 2022

      North York Moors, UK
      Ongoing

      View More
Back to exhibitions

Galerie Lelong, New York

528 West 26th Street

New York, NY 10001

T +1 212 315 0470

F +1 212 262 0624

art@galerielelong.com

Galerie Lelong, Paris

13, rue de Téhéran

75008 Paris France

T +33 1 45 63 13 19

F +33 1 42 89 34 33

info@galerie-lelong.com

Galerie Lelong, Paris

38, avenue Matignon

75008 Paris France

T +33 1 45 63 13 19

F +33 1 42 89 34 33
info@galerie-lelong.com

Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
WeChat, opens in a new tab.
Artsy, opens in a new tab.
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Galerie Lelong
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences