Rachel Monosov: The Flag Bearers

In her solo exhibition The Flag Bearers, Rachel Monosov draws on the surrealist visual vocabulary of Edgar Ende (1901–1965). The exhibition's title refers to Edgar Ende's painting Die Fahnenträger (1931), one of three works that Monosov brings into the present and whose symbolic content she explores anew in sculptural works and a performance. The artist regards Surrealism as a reaction to the aftereffects of the First World War, a movement that turned away from logic and linear views of reality. By turning to dreams and the unconscious, the Surrealist*innen created both a refuge and a way of confronting loss, trauma and human fragility. From this perspective, the artist reflects on history in its recurring cycles while also asking how these continue into the present. In doing so, she examines the emotional forces underlying growing nationalism, and the tension between bodies and ideology.