Royal Poster (left aligned)
Henningham Family Press
2011
Edition 30
screenprint
20 x 25in
£234 (£390 framed)
Selected C0llections:
Victoria and Albert Museum
Saison Poetry Library (Royal Festival Hall)
Royal Poster (left aligned), is from our An Unknown Soldier project, which ruminates on the meaning of a memorial to an unknown soldier in the age of DNA testing. Does he now embody our desire to ignore the past, rather than remember?
In this project we use three bespoke Trench fonts to evoke the anatomy of trench warfare and, using old-fashioned paper sizes, we have alluded to call-up posters, papers, and martial instruction manuals. The block letters are topped with patterns similar to those found in security envelopes. This white, red and silver screenprint on turqoise paper reads ‘Thee must habeas n corpus for tet corps un see’, which means ‘You must have a body for this body of men, I see’ in the dystopian Esperanto of our unknown soldier.
It wasn’t just military technology that caused the First World War to become so destructive; new advances in print technology and propaganda were required to collect such a vast body of men.
This print has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum. As well as the National Art Library, the V&A Museum has a wonderful print study room where people can look at the extensive collection of prints and drawings without an appointment. You can tell as soon as you walk into the Sackler Centre that this is an institution engrossed in contemporary artistry and craftsmanship, with a thriving events programme.
