Michelle Lopez: Halyard

I wanted to build everything surrounding a flag—the pole, the rope movement, the sound of the flag flapping sculpturally through the space … . All of these elements build the artifice of the “pomp and circumstance” of an important figure or event. But then without the actual flag, the absence creates an experience of impotence, and even contradiction. –Michelle Lopez, 2014

In her Remis Sculpture Court presentation, Michelle Lopez’s Halyard is a sculptural sound installation that evokes a flag with everything but the flag itself—the pole, rope, cleat (halyard), and the sounds of fabric flapping in the wind and rope striking metal. In doing so, Lopez breaks down our associations with the idea of a flag—be it a national, institutional, or even a nautical one—to address issues of nationalism and power. 

Halyard is part of Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt, on view in the Aidekman Arts Center January 15–April 19, 2026. The exhibition is curated by Dina Deitsch, Director and Chief Curator, TUAG, and generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. 

Sound design for Halyard is by Andy Clifford. Soundtrack by Jonathan Mildenberg. 

Michelle Lopez  (b. 1970, Bridgeport, CT; lives and works in Philadelphia) received an MFA from School of Visual Arts, New York (1994) and a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University (1992). Lopez is Associate Professor in Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and head of the sculpture program.

Lopez is a recipient of the Knight Art + Tech Fellowship (2025), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2019), and New York Foundation for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship (2011). 

 Image: Halyard, 2016. Alt Art Space, Istanbul. Photo: Batu Tezyüksel.