Couponnenboek ten name van Philip Zilcken 1924

This coupon book was made in 1924 for the International Art Exposition in Venice, probably printed with ink on paper. I'm interested in how artists get to exhibitions and how it feels when they finally arrive, a little travel-weary, into the chaos of the vernissage. Imagine that anonymous designer, hunched over their drafting table, meticulously laying out the text and decorative borders. You know, there's a lot of care in that repetitive patterning—dots and florals and all that old-timey stuff – framing the official stamps and Italian script. There's also the stains! They remind me of Helen Frankenthaler, only the work isn't intentional; I wonder how those stains and imperfections happened. It's such an evocative piece of ephemera, really – a tangible connection to a specific moment in time. Like a postcard from art history, connecting us to the artist’s journey, as well as our own.