Wallpapers change spaces. When artists create wallpaper, one can assume that it not only changes the effect of the space, but that other forms of perception will be activated. The wallpaper Pastete by gelatin demands a particularly thorough viewing. At first glance, the delicate drawings of female and male genitals look like floral decoration. They hop across the walls in light and bright colors, quite childishly drawn. One is reminded of Robert Gober‘s Male and Female Genital Wallpaper (1989) or of Sarah Lucas’s Tits in Space (2000).

By “publishing” intimate, very private zones in public spaces, the artists break a taboo. In 1989, it was important to Robert Gober to address AIDS as a social issue. In the 1960s, Andy Warhol designed a wallpaper with the comic-like head of Mao. At the time, the threat of communism was omnipresent. Through exaggeration, Warhol created trivialization via the means of his time. In the present, the themes of sexuality and gender roles are dominant. With the overabundance of sexually charged images in various media and advertisements it makes sense to confront them in a different way. In the orderly world of offices, where everything has a defined place, rough scribbles, such as those found on construction sites and other temporary places, bring a different reality into the building. Gelatin do this provocatively, and with a touch of humor, but at least in a gender-appropriate way.

evn collection, 2018 (translation: Virginia Dellenbaugh)