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32 Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection
Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection 33
Latifa Echakhch
/ Morocco/France b.1974 / À
chaque stencil une révolution (For each stencil a revolution)
(installation view) 2007 / One wall: carbon paper A4, glue,
methylated alcohol / Dimensions variable / Acc. 2010.302 / Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Lat i fa Echakhch
À
chaque stencil une révolution
(
For each stencil a revolution
) 2007
À
chaque stencil une révolution
(
For each stencil a revolution
)
derives its name from an aphorism of Yasser Arafat (1929–
2004), the first president of the Palestinian National Authority.
The citation here refers specifically to the labour strikes,
human rights demonstrations and war protests of the 1960s —
in particular, the student riots of May ’68 in France and global
anti-Vietnam–US War protests — for which carbon paper
and stencil machines were used to reproduce political flyers.
The work is completed when alcohol is poured down its dark
blue surface, creating variations in the shade and texture of the
carbon paper and causing the pigment to bleed and pool on the
gallery floor. With this gesture, Echakhch drains the carbon paper
of its rhetorical power, leaving each ‘stencil’ to stand as an eerie
monument to revolutions past.