Buiten Gewone Nederlandsche Staats-Courant. Vrijdag, 15 December. No. 298*. 1843 Possibly 1843

Curator: The “Buiten Gewone Nederlandsche Staats-Courant” of Friday, December 15th, possibly 1843. Quite a mouthful! What are your initial thoughts? Editor: Bleak news rendered in monochrome, fitting for a document of state. It has a somber, formal quality, like a decree etched in stone, all lines and right angles and a rather stark emptiness overall. Curator: Exactly! The artist was Algemeene Landsdrukkerij. Note the stark contrast between the ornate coat-of-arms at the top and the grim text below. This was, of course, meant to be mass-produced, to spread like ink through society. I love to wonder who might have clutched this in their hands while absorbing this message. Editor: As a print, the piece embodies early information design: efficient, authoritative. It also showcases Dutch typography of the period. I am looking at the title. It is fascinating to me how blocky everything feels despite the effort. Curator: And of course, there's the language itself. It's so formal, almost theatrical. I wonder what the “treurige berigt” – sad news – really refers to… given that the document shares the “ontboode adj”- "summoned adj" on an armstol/ armchair, and “levenloos sittende gefunden”- “ lifeless sitting, found”. Death of someone? This document embodies the distance that authority imposes through its chosen forms. The people will hear about a thing with great ceremony only *after* everything has been verified and controlled. Editor: Yes, control feels like the operative principle. Everything, from the title to the body text to the imposing heraldic imagery works in tandem. One clear point of singular emphasis that says something along the lines of "THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY, READ IT PROPERLY, ACCEPT IT." Curator: It’s an object from the past but in a strange way its very stiffness has something of the immediacy and urgency of an incoming tweet. We are invited into a kind of virtual space of reception. You find this, you feel what they wanted you to feel back then. Editor: Yes. The news has aged but the underlying architecture that presents it hasn’t shifted much, in some ways. It’s as potent, as relevant, as unsettling as it ever was.