‘Bouvard et Pecuchet’

In November 2009, Swollen was commissioned to produce the poster and invitations for ‘Bouvard et Pecuchet’, an exhibition at the Lighthouse curated by Carolina Hoffman.The title of the exhibition was taken from a book by Gustave Flaubert about copy clerks who enjoy the process of copying. Artists featured in the exhibition had been asked to create new pieces of work that were based on other works of art that are currently exhibited at MoMA, New York.Taking our cue from the theme of the book, we based our central theme for the design on the notion of copying and repetition.The invitations were produced twice, one positive and the other, a negative ‘copy’. The poster was an elaboration of this concept, with both the positive and negative elements present together, presenting various layers of information copied on top of one and another.