Prentbriefkaart aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1909 - 1923

This postcard, addressed to Philip Zilcken, dates from around 1909. Look at the handwriting, see how it flows across the surface? The text, the stamps, the numbering – all these marks merge into a composition that’s both deliberate and accidental. The material quality of this postcard is so unassuming, but it carries so much. The paper is thin, aged, stained, with these delicate handwritten lines in faded ink. I’m really drawn to the stamp of the Deutsches Reich with its portrait and the smudged circular stamps. Each one tells a little story – the place it passed through, the date, and the hands it traveled between. It's a modest piece, but I feel it speaks to the tradition of artists like Cy Twombly who embrace the poetics of the everyday. The postcard reminds me that art is often about the beauty we find in the overlooked and discarded. It invites us to consider how even the simplest of objects can become carriers of history and memory.