OMP 40: The Smell of Deposition

Black silkscreened hardcover
112 Riso-printed pages: black and red.
Printed by Freek on Eric de Haas’ Risograph, silkscreened by lara de Greef at Grafisch Atelier ’s-hertogenbosch.
Graphic design by Remco van Bladel i.c.w. Rob van den Nieuwenhuizen
Paper: Muncken Print White 115 grams/m2
Binding: Boekbinderij Distelkamp, Dodewaard
edition: 300

Aeron Bergman (US) and Alejandra Salinas (ES) made gouache drawings of multiple monuments of revolutions worldwide. Each drawing represents not only the specific reason d’être of each monument but also, extra more, a variety of styles, commissioners, craft, era’s and political outcomes. The series enables a further scent of ’revolution’ in regard of its romantic pronunciation, via craft wise created, secondary source material of monuments and is, as such, an artistic quest into the roaming qualities of those protagonist aspects that brought the work about in the first place.

Simultaneous, they exhibit cloths from Palestine, Syria, Egypt and H&M: all filled with patterns of certain origins. Visually attractive as wrapped on a canvas, they lose their recognisability in their political loath and seem to become just fashionable items. Again: can we recognise political symbolism when faced with it and, even more, where does this politics end?

Thirdly in this succumbing of symbolism is a display table, filled with forms directly referring to the forms mentioned before but: imagined! On the table, a radio speaker is placed, voicing the roar of the public listing to the famous speech of Martin Luther King junior. Is this a celebration of design or a warning for symbolic temptations.