12 May–8 June 2002 / Casco HQ
Experimental Jetset presents Kelly 1:1, a cover version by Experimental Jetset in Casco. As a tribute to the American artist Elsworth Kelly, Kelly 1:1 is a “remake” of his painting Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red (1966). Experimental Jetset’s interpretation is a faithful reproduction (scale 1:1) of the original, a “light” version that is made up of printed sheets of A4 paper that – collated – form the cover version of the painting which measures 6 by 1,5 meters. At the same time Kelly 1:1 appears as a publication, itself a 1:1 version of the remake. The publication functions both as the catalogue to the exhibition, as well as a bound version of the presentation.
Covers are a familiar phenomenon in the music world, but don’t really exist in the arts where authorship is still very much tied to the notion of the artist as genius and the uniqueness of his work. In the visual arts, one rather speaks of references. Kelly 1:1 is not a reference, but a literal interpretation of Kelly’s Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. With Kelly 1:1, Experimental Jetset cover a “classic” abstract painting of the 60s, not intended as a critique but as an impudent homage.
Experimental Jetset is the collaboration of graphic designers Erwin Brinkers, Marieke Stolk and Danny van den Dungen (Amsterdam). They designed the display of the exhibition Display that is currently on show at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. For the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam they made the installation Black Metal Machine (1998) and for De Gele Rijder in Arnhem 31 Flavours of Doom (1999). Their designs vary from publications and catalogues (a/o for the Purple exhibition Elysian Fields, Centre Pompidou), the website of Purple Institute (www.purple.fr), stamps for the Royal Dutch Mail, T-shirts for the Japanese label 2K, to the design and guest editorship of the American magazine Emigre’s 57 issue.
