Detachement Nanga-Pinoh, 1948 Possibly 1948

This page from a 1948 photo album by Sergeant-Major Theunissen feels like a time capsule. It’s not a painting, but an accumulation of photographs and handwritten text. I can almost feel the artist arranging the images on the page, responding to their shapes and sizes. Theunissen was probably thinking about the relationships between people, places, and dates while pasting these images together. Look at the way the artist places photographs of the troops alongside images of the military encampment. What does it mean to commemorate war in this format? You know, all artists borrow and steal ideas, remixing them through the act of painting or collage. It's an ongoing conversation, echoing and inspiring each other across time. Just think about how Theunissen might have been inspired by the forms of military organization in his own way of organizing this archive.