German Artists Claim Responsibility for Brooklyn Bridge Flag Switch - East Idaho News
National

German Artists Claim Responsibility for Brooklyn Bridge Flag Switch

  Published at

GETTY 81314 BkBrdige?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1407957360738iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — New York police believe that the German artists who claimed responsibility for switching out the flags on the Brooklyn Bridge are likely the perpetrators.

Investigators think they have a photo of one of them exiting the subway at the Brooklyn Bridge stop about 3 a.m. the morning it happened.

Mischa Leinkauf and Mattias Wermke said Tuesday that the Brooklyn Bridge stunt was their latest work, and was intended as a celebration of public art and not as any political statement. On Wednesday, a law enforcement source told ABC News that the New York Police Department is starting to believe the artists’ description of the intricate flag.

The Berlin-based duo said that the flags that they put on top of the bridge were not bleached white but were made of white material and then hand-stitched so that it was done in Old Glory style with white stars and stripes. They said that they followed U.S. Flag Code in their handling of the American flags that they took down and promised to return them, but did not say where they are currently being stored or when they plan to give them back.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the police are still looking over their video surveillance tapes and they will have the final decision whether or not to prosecute.

“I am going to leave it to the NYPD to answer in specific. If they have violated the law, of course they should be prosecuted,” de Blasio said.

The artists have a history of daring performance art that has shown them scaling buildings and bridges across the globe and if the Brooklyn Bridge stunt is true, it’s not their first “performance” on the Brooklyn Bridge. The duo has pictures on their website showing balloons that they “installed” on the cables of the bridge in 2007.

In a statement, the artists said that their inspiration to change the flags was in tribute to the bridge’s creator, John August Roebling.

“He was a pioneer in the field of suspension bridges and his creations have become landmarks and unique architectural pieces of American history,” they wrote in the statement.

They claim they used the anniversary of his death — July 21, 1926 after an on-site accident — as the justification for their timing this year and paid tribute to Roebling’s own inspiration before the stunt by visiting a church in Germany, the design of which reportedly influenced his creation of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The artists told ABC News that they would not be able to immediately respond due to the large number of media requests at this time, though they did share photos of a selection of their prior works.

Their website includes slideshows of their work, which shows that the pair regularly scales buildings and landmarks in the name of art, including not only a number of landmarks in their hometown of Berlin but also smokestacks in Prague and a skyscraper in Tokyo.


Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION