Shane Cullen is an Irish artist whose largely text-based work deals with political issues, often specifically with official documents and symbols. ‘Fragmens Sur Les Institutions Republicaines IV’ was made over a period of four years and consists of 96 large styrofoam panels, each carrying transcriptions of the secret messages smuggled out of the H-Blocks in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland during the period of the 1981 hunger strike by Republican prisoners. The subject matter is controversial and subversive but presented in a highly disciplined fashion that suggests historical, sculptural monuments. Each painted word is straight-jacketed into a typeface, which mimics official government documents. The piece has been widely shown – both as a work in progress, in various contexts, not least at the Irish exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1995; and as a completed installation. More recently the artist was commissioned to create an artwork on the subject of the Good Friday Agreement, signed in Belfast in 1998.