Headlining NGV’s “Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990s” from 2 June to 1 October is the 1994 work “Fake Flag” by Greek Australian artist, Constanze Zikos. In this work, the Union Jack bedecked Australian flag is given a new twist with stunning design and colourist effects. NGV describes the exhibition as “exploring a dynamic decade in Australian art characterised by dynamic change….engaging with pressing social issues including gender politics, Indigenous identity and globalism”. 1994 was around the time that the major push for an Australian republic was starting to gather a head of steam culminating in Republic referendum in 1999. See “Fake Flag” below from the NGV’s collection. You can google other versions of Constanze’s fake flags.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
