Model, Flag: Burning

Staged 2003, Wire Farewell Performance, Barbican Hall, London, UK

“I was invited to design the art punk band Wire’s farewell performance and wanted to disrupt the typical silhouette of a four-piece band. I presented them as a composite, using close-up photography of their facial features and ECG readings of their collective heartbeat. The show went more or less to plan. But I hadn’t considered how they would leave their boxes at the end. Velcro was too expensive for my very tight budget, so I’d stapled the gauze covers onto the cubes, trapping the four men inside.”

—Es Devlin

Row of four cubes, the front face of each filled with cropped images of an eye, nose, mouth, and eye

Production photograph, Flag: Burning
Staged 2003, Wire Farewell Performance, Barbican Hall, London, UK
Courtesy of Es Devlin

Row of four red translucent cubes, each with a black silhouette of a band number inside

Production photograph, Flag: Burning
Staged 2003, Wire Farewell Performance, Barbican Hall, London, UK
Courtesy of Es Devlin

Row of four cubes, one glowing yellow to reveal the silhouette of a man with a microphone inside

Production photograph, Flag: Burning
Staged 2003, Wire Farewell Performance, Barbican Hall, London, UK
Courtesy of Es Devlin

Installation view of a model comprising four red-lit cubes lined up next to each other. Inside each cube is a figure playing an instrument.

Es Devlin, Model, Flag: Burning, Acrylic, mirror paper, mesh, and LED, recreated for exhibition.
Staged 2003, Wire Farewell Performance, Barbican Hall, London, UK
Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution

Installation view of a model comprising four cubes lined up next to each other. Inside each cube is a figure playing an instrument.

Model, Flag: Burning

An Atlas of Es Devlin

Your journey so far

All pages

An Infinite Archive

Studio

Iris

Archive Unboxed

Sculptures, Ideas to Forms

Studies, Abel’s Mask

Studies, After Hours Til Dawn

Studies, Bangerz

Studies, Come Home Again

Studies, Electric

Studies, Experience + Innocence

Studies, Flag: Burning

Studies, Forest of Us

Studies, Fundamental

Studies, Hello

Studies, Innocence + Experience

Studies, Legend of the Fall

Studies, Memory Palace

Studies, Mirror Maze

Studies, PoemPortraits

Studies, Sphere

Studies, Unknown Soldier

Studies, Witness

Study, Die Tote Stadt

Study, Don Giovanni

Study, Free Your Mind

Model, Atlas

Model, Betrayal

Model, Don Giovanni

Model, Fundamental

Model, Howie the Rookie

Model, La Caja Mágica / The Seed

Model, Legend of the Fall

Model, Macbeth

Model, Parsifal

Model, The Hunt

Model, The Lehman Trilogy

Sculpture, Songs for Sorrow

Model, Abel’s Mask

Model, Bangerz

Model, Carmen

Model, Chimerica

Model, Compton Super Bowl

Model, Flag: Burning

Model, Hello

Model, Innocence + Experience

Model, Les Troyens

Model, Progress

Model, London Olympics

Study, Dynamic Cube

Study, Perforated Screen

Model, Come Home Again

Model, Five Echoes

Model, Forest of Us

Model, Infinite Library

Model, Memory Palace

Model, Mirror Maze

Model, Please Feed the Lions

Model, Poem Pavilion

Model, Redraw the Edges of Your Self

Model, Room 2022

Model, Your Voices

Model, Zoetrope

Theater in a Box

Films

Book Unbound