New Year’s card 1999. 119991119199. Homage to Richard Avedon

1999

Indirect inspiration (somewhere in my distant memory, but not specific) came from the photograph by the American photographer Richard Avedon of a beekeeper whose face and body were covered with bees. Abstracted they looked like black spots, and I changed them into the figures 1 9 9 9 for our card. There were no tricks, the figures were literally stuck onto my face and body.
Remember Letraset?

The text on the back was a poem written by the French experimental poet Morel in 1962:

* pilote des Mages
…..
Toi & Moi
(entre nous)
, et la suite
: on va tout savoir
“…..”
; Ã bout de souffle
? crois-tu ?
oh!
un. c’est tout !

Anecdote: That year when we went to Idea Books, an importer in Amsterdam we have worked with for years, the packer who had seen the postcard, asked quite seriously: “Who are moi and toi?” (pronounced phonetically, because the young man didn’t speak French). He thought they were the names of people. This joke has stayed with us ever since.
When Johan and I don’t understand something, we say to each other: “Who are toi and moi?”