Bandera by Antonio Dias

The Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago has organized multiple activities during 2012 to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of its foundation. A noteworthy event was the final installation at the Museum's entrance of the work entitled Bandera (Flag) by Brazilian artist Antonio Dias, in the context of the exhibition entitled 40 Years of the Museo de la Solidaridad for Chile: Fraternity, Art, and Politics, organized by Carla Miranda, curator and head of archives at MSSA, and Carla Macchiavello.

A 1972 manuscript by Antonio Dias was found during the research process centered on the history of the museum, its collection, and the historical period. In it, Dias explains the execution and basis for his work Bandera, conceived— according to the wishes of President Allende and the managers—to be placed outside the building located on Parque O'Higgins. Today, forty years after its creation, Dias's instructions were finally carried out and the work now rests at the place it was meant to be.

Dias wanted to donate a lasting work that was not an object for static contemplation and that did not rely on traditional methods of creation. The result produced a flag that is at once a pictorial surface, canvas, installation, object, and emblem that questions the limits between art and everyday life. The red flag, a color always present in Dias's work, had to be gigantic, visible beyond the museum's limits, and represent a political gesture very much in the way flags are in urban landscapes.

Antonio Dias was born in Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brazil, in 1944. Throughout his artistic career he experimented with diverse forms of artistic expression, as he delved in painting, sculpture, cinematography, photography, discography, installations. His work continually evidenced the relevance of logical and conceptual structures amid a diversity of other manifestations. Dias is regarded in the international art scene as a referent of contemporary Brazilian art.