50-year-olds: they’re hung up in streets, stuck in dull, damp plastic sleeves; they are taped to lampposts, to electricity substations or traffic signs, or they’re attached to trees with drawing pins. This publication, made alongside an exhibition of the same name, explore the typically Dutch tradition of publicly displaying homemade photo collages throughout streets and neighbourhoods in celebration of a person’s 50th birthday. Almost reminiscent of missing pet posters, amateur portrait photographs are distributed and displayed by being taped onto lamp posts and stapled to trees by friends or relatives, at the mercy of public opinion. Exposed to judgment and ridicule by friends, family and strangers, due to the usually demeaning nature of the photographs through unflattering holiday photos and the likes, individuals are exposed, raised out of anonymity and placed in the public eye. The presented collection of posters constitutes an archive and an ode to amateur, home made graphic design, made possible through the democratisation of artistic means and software such as word art, paint and clip art. Published by Onomatopee (Eindhoven).
100 pages, 29.7 x 21cm, softcover, Onomatopee (Eindhoven).