ANARCHIVE

By Béla Pablo Janssen 
236 pages
ISBN 978-3-910265-059 

Including a holistic poster of all motifs 
Introduced by Alicia Holthausen and Gregor Jansen

The ANARCHIVE series comprises 103 posters, which Béla Pablo Janssen has collected between 2013 and 2023. BPJ sprays over the posters uniformly: The text part is blotted out with colored, white, or black spray paint that matches the color of the original text, creating “clouds” or “bars” on each poster where the information about the exhibitions was once legible. In the color-congruent overspraying, a new pictorial interweaving of background and blotted-out text information is created. The viewer lacks the essential information. Deprived of this, BPJ presents them as purely visual, aesthetic remnants. 

The artworks are labeled with a sequential number, accompanied by the exhibition's title and venue to which they are associated. The series itself bears the name ANARCHIVE, intertwining the concepts of organization and accumulation found within traditional archives, while engaging with the political state of lawlessness and absence of authority. At this intersection rises a fresh framework—an innovative archive—that thrives on subverting and infiltrating the existing order.

ANARCHIVE is published on the occasion of the show by the same name as part of the IM FOYER series at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (24.6.–17.9.2023)