After a thorough renovation, the Liberation Flag of Groningen proudly adorns the Nieuwstad once again. Artist collective Forma Aktua, founded by artist Henri de Wolf, donated the flag to the city in 1982: a monument against fascism. Kunstpunt looks back with good friend, artist and documentary maker Buddy Hermans: where did the flag come from?
Henri de Wolf literally stormed into Buddy Hermans’ life. “I had an act with Groningen poet Kees van der Hoef. So somewhere in the early eighties we were in Mutua Fides, the Vindicat club on the Grote Markt. Kees shouted poems into the audience and I played the accordion very lyrically behind him. I remember a man in a black suit running down the stairs. He knelt down in front of us and shouted ‘Too cool! Too cool!’. It turned out to be Henri de Wolf.”
Henri de Wolf: a whirlwind of a thousand and one things at once. “He was a politician, painter, artist, activist, musician. He knew that I was a filmmaker as well as a musician and wanted me to record everything he did. And you couldn’t say no to Henri de Wolf,” says Hermans. A big grin appears on his face. “Henri had such a charisma. He completely carried you along in his plans. I had to be available at the craziest moments.” And so the two became friends.
Hermans regularly visited Forma Aktua with his camera when the group of artists met to discuss and work out new plans for De Wolf. The Liberation Flag, for example, images of which can be seen in the documentary about De Wolf that Hermans made and was released after his death in 1986.
“He wanted to do something against fascism. Henri wanted a better world.”
“It was a wild plan,” says Hermans in his studio in Het Paleis. “Henri wanted five flags, throughout the city. He was incredibly politically involved. In El Salvador, IKON journalists Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag had just been murdered. That really affected him.” De Wolf, who came to the Netherlands from Indonesia with his parents as a little boy, also saw terrible things in his native country in his youth. “He wanted to do something against fascism. Henri wanted a better world.”
The Municipality of Groningen did not want to buy De Wolf’s wild plan, the Five Flags for May 5, says Hermans. De Wolf would not be De Wolf if he were to let that stop him. “Henri simply came up with something new.” He created one flag from the five designs, the Liberation Flag.
“There is a kink in the pole and the flag itself is completely frayed. In other words: the flag has been through a battle,” says Hermans. “But it is still standing.” According to the documentary maker, it is a flag with a design that remains painfully relevant today. “History is almost repeating itself at the moment, with all these wars. It makes the importance of that flag clear again. The world has not become a nicer place since then. I don't find it as pleasant as I used to."
The Liberation Flag has been back in its place in the Nieuwstad since December 1, refurbished and cleaned. But how did it come about that the municipality wanted this flag at the time? "Henri donated the flag in 1982. The municipality couldn't say no to that."
Text: Karlijn ter Horst
Photos: Rohan Hoeksma