Stempel met adres van Dr. W. Drees in Den Haag 1945

This is a stamp with the address of Dr. W. Drees in The Hague, and it's hanging out in the Rijksmuseum, all 5 by 10 cm of it. I like to imagine the hand that pressed down on it—the repetitive motion of stamping, stamping, stamping. Was it Dr. Drees himself? Or a secretary, diligently marking correspondence? There's a physicality to it, like printmaking but with an authoritarian purpose. You know, I think about Jasper Johns and his stamps. What is it about the grid, about repetition, that holds our attention? Maybe it's the hint of mass production meeting individual action, a little like a personal painting process where control and chaos meet. The mark becomes more than just information; it's a trace of a gesture, a small echo of a moment in time.