The kinetic installation *Searching for a Czech Patriot Under the Czechoslovak Flag* primarily refers to the complicated process of the republic’s dissolution. Although this process was based on specific dates when the individual stages of the breakup were legally confirmed, the haste and bitterness with which two closely related nations relinquished their shared history have not been forgotten. After the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic in 1993, despite agreements on the creation of new state symbols on both sides, the newly formed Czech Republic retained the original Czechoslovak flag. The blue wedge on the Czechoslovak flag historically represented the color of Slovakia and, at the same time, the three mountains from the Slovak coat of arms (Matra, Fatra, Tatra). At the time of its creation, the flag symbolized, in a somewhat utopian sense, the non-hierarchical unity of the Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks. Today, the color blue is associated with Moravia. This “second-hand” use of blue points to the ambivalence of the flag’s very value as a national and state symbol. It’s a sort of Slovak “Trojan horse” on the Czech flag. In principle, however, it’s not possible to propose something that’s ideologically correct and then, when it doesn’t suit us, change our position. This is especially true for state symbols, which should be rooted in history and tradition. The “war over the blue color on the Czech flag” may not be as significant as the historical importance of the “shared” flag for Slovaks. In turbulent times, when the thinking of both nations was unifying but also radicalizing (1945, 1968, 1989), the Czechoslovak flag carried by the crowds represented the moral and political authority of the era. For both Czechs and Slovaks.
