Robert Filliou – Project for Sky-Writing (n°1), 1971
Robert Filliou – Project for Sky-Writing (n°9), 1971
Robert Filliou – Project for Sky-Writing (n°10), 1971

In Project for Sky-Writing, Robert Filliou reclaims for poetry and thought a medium typically reserved for advertising. In each of the ten screenprints comprising the series, he marks out the shape of a page in the sky and fills it with messages such as “LOVE = U.F.O.” or “1666 km/h”. Instead of selling a product or conveying information, these airborne messages circulate as poetic possibilities against the seemingly boundless sky. Filliou intended them to be written by aeroplane. At the Free Speech Festival in New York in 1976, the cellist and performance artist Charlotte Moorman realised one of the proposals by having “LOVE = U.F.O.” written across the sky. As Filliou later recalled: “Charlotte asked me for a project. I gave her that and she did it.”

At the core of Robert Filliou’s practice are ideas of language, play and exchange. Trained in economics and associated with Fluxus, he conceived art as a continuous, collective activity embedded in everyday life. His work challenges conventional notions of authorship, value and production, favouring openness, humour and participation. Through gestures that blur the boundaries between art and non-art, Filliou redefined creation as an ongoing process of thinking, making and sharing, an approach that continues to shape the understanding of art as a space of exchange.