Flag Series: Felipe Mujica, Estrella Distante

Americas Society’s Flag Series presents public artworks on the building facade of 68th Street.

The two rotating flags Estrella Distante by Felipe Mujica (b. Santiago, Chile; 1974) propose an abstract reinterpretation of an ancient Mapuche flag, which consists of a white guñelve—an eight-pointed star—over a colorful background.

Mujica says about his flags: “Since the social outbreak (Estallido Social) in Chile in the Fall of 2019, the assertion of indigenous culture and territorial demands were placed at the center of the political discussion. Their historical struggle was accompanied and complemented by student demands, health and pension reforms, and both feminist and LGTBQ+ activism (among many other demands concentrated on recovering social, gender, and racial equality). This is the first set of flags I ever produced. On the one hand, I am slightly against flags as symbols of power, in such a direct way, on the other hand, I call my textile-based work ‘curtains’ as a way to specifically channel the conversation about them from a domestic point of view. This project then contains this dichotomy, the overtly political and the social implications of the domestic (the flags will be produced by myself at home).”

Through abstraction and playfulness, these flags decompose and deconstruct the original flag turning them into symbols asserting indigenous culture and social rights in Chile, at the same time that they highlight the political dimension of the domestic.

The first flag in this series was on view September 15 – December 18, 2021.

About the artist:

Felipe Mujica (Santiago, Chile, 1974) studied art at the Universidad Católica de Chile. Just out of art school, in 1997, he co-founds with Diego Fernández and José Luis Villablanca the artist-run space Galería Chilena (GCH), which operated between 1999 and 2005, first as a nomadic and commercial art gallery and later as a collaborative art project, a curatorial “experiment”. In early 2000 Mujica moved to New York City where he currently lives. Parallel and interrelated to his own work Mujica has organized and produced many collaborative projects, which include mostly exhibitions and the editing, design and publishing of books. Mujica has had solo shows at Dimensions Variable, Miami, Sindicato, Las Terrenas, República Dominicana, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Galería Gabriela Mistral, Santiago de Chile, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Galerie von Bartha, Basel/S-chanf, Museo Experimental El Eco, México D.F., Proyectos Ultravioleta, Ciudad de Guatemala (2 person), Galerie Christinger De Mayo, Zürich, and Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago. He is currently exhibiting at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Group shows include Senderos transversales, Galería Gabriela Mistral, Santiago de Chile (2020), Nunca fuimos contemporaneos, Bienal Femsa, Zacatecas (2018), Shout Fire!, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg (2018), Zigzag Incisions, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch and SALTS, Basel (2017), Incerteza viva, 32a Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2016), Embodied Absence: Chilean Art of the 1970s Now, The Carpenter Center for The Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2016), La liberté sans nom, CRAC Alsace - Centre Rhénan d'Art Contemporain, Altkirch, (2016), Ir para volver, 12 Bienal de Cuenca (2014); Ways of Working: The Incidental Object, Fondazione Merz, Turín (2013); Parque Industrial, Galeria Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo (2012); Contaminaciones Contemporaneas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Universidad de Chile, Santiago (2012) and Museu de Arte Contemporãnea da Universidade de São Paulo (2011); The S-Files, Museo del Barrio, New York (2011); Critical Complicity, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2010); The Nature of Things, Biennial of the Americas, Denver (2010), 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou (2009); and Linea de hormigas, A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro (2007).