WHITE FLAG DAY

On October 18, 1988, the artist Johannes Cladders raised a white flag on the former demarcation line between east and west Jerusalem. In honor of this unique campaign, which did not necessarily meet approval from the local bureaus and population, the Akademie Schloss Solitude introduced the “White Flag Day” 20 years later in 2008. With this, it wants to encourage people in the entire world to raise a white flag—whose symbolic language can be understood by everyone—on their house or window.

Participants are asked to photographically document their flags on the White Flag Day and to send their documentation via e-mail to whiteflag@akademie-solitude.de. All pictures will be documented on the White Flag Day Blog, which gives an impression of the great international response to this action.

The Akademie will also hang a white flag on the castle dome on October 18, 2012.

Johannes Cladders wrote the following about the white flag:
“It consists of a piece of fabric or any other comparable material. Its dimension and shape can be described objectively. Besides the white color it doesn’t convey any further information. For this reason it is open to any kind of individual and/or corporate interpretation: From the symbolic color to endless meanings in the context of politics, war and peace, religion, philosophy, sciences, moral, history of culture and art. The white flag means freedom. When you raise the flag on the 18th of October you make a statement”.

Johannes Cladders (*1924, † 2009 in Krefeld) was the founding director of the Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach, and received the German architecture prize in 1984 for the museum’s new building along with Hans Hollein. Cladders served as the Akademie Schloss Solitude’s jury chairman from 1989 to 1992. In additional to his activity as museum director, Cladders was active as an artist under the name © for Caesar.