11. Dialogue

The last poster in THE BLAME SERIES - FEEL BAD POSTERS is called DIALOGUE, there's no arguing about that.

Alright, pun intended.

This image is meant to illustrate the dead ends of verbal fighting.

(Size 600x800 mm. Edition of 35. 2011)

12. Lame

BLAME LAME BA BLA BLA BLA is number 5 in THE BLAME SERIES - FEEL BAD POSTERS. 

(Size 600x800 mm. Edition of 35. 2011)

Extra blame

YOU'RE TO BLAME and YOU ARE WAY OUT OF LINE,  number 3 and 4 in THE BLAME SERIES - FEEL BAD POSTERS have not yet been printed. But this is what they look like. You need to know. Because YOU did wrong again.  Or was it me?

13. Wrong

The second poster in THE BLAME SERIES - FEEL BAD POSTERS is telling it straight to your face.

Anglophones may find it interesting that this word has Norse roots.

Blaming others is indeed an old Scandinavian tradition. 

Vrång is still a word in Swedish, pronounced similarly, however including the v-sound.

(Size 600x800 mm. Edition of 35. 2011)

An unconditioned reflex

The question of guilt has almost always interested me, I think ever since I was a small child, the youngest of four.

Whose fault was this? Whose fault was that?

For me it's an unconditioned reflex to think I am the one who did wrong.

This morning I caught a cold.

For this I blame my 3-year old son.

And so, guilt is all around. 

Some of us blame everybody else for everything, others blame themselves. 

What kind are you?

14. Your fault

I just got the images of all the posters from helpful Helena.

These will be used for a 24-page leaflet to the exhibition. 

I am so happy that the brilliant writer Torbjörn Elensky (links from here on in Swedish only) has accepted my request to put words to my images. 

Or should I say make images out of my words?

Whichever, his text will be featured in the leaflet and it will be printed next week at my favorite Stockholm printers Vitt Grafiska.

Here is the first poster I made out of the 14. (Size 600x800 mm. Edition of 35. 2011)

I believe this to be true in a universal sense.

The text is a wonderful accusation, God knows who is addressing whom.

The staff at Beckmans College of Design were asked to put together an exhibition of their own work outside of school. 

This was around September 2011 and I decided to make something special for the show. THE BLAME SERIES. FEEL BAD POSTERS was the result and they looked something like this as A3 printouts at the teachers' exhibition.

I later printed the first four in full size (600x800mm). YOU'RE TO BLAME and YOU ARE WAY OUT OF LINE  were never printed in full size, off-set. Maybe one day.

Definition of an artist.

An artist is he/she who finds his/her artwork for sale under the category Art (or in this case Konst) at an auction house.

Selling out

I'm so in love with this embossing business I have to show you two pictures taken last fall, when my first four posters were printed, at the same fine printshop.

I myself have none of these posters left for sale. Edition then was only 35. Now, with the new prints, edition is 50. Still not a lot. 

However, a few of the old ones, incidentally, are still available here and here.

What do you make of the difference in prices depending on what country sells?

Anyhow, I've learned from watching Ernst Billgren that it's an artist's job to produce artwork for other people to make a living out of.

Almost 14 (13 to be exact) exteriors with red color

Shooting

Earlier today, with the benign help of Helena Björck all 14 prints were shot to be reproduced in a leaflet I'm putting together for the exhibition.

Also, the miniature room with claustrophobic "wall postering" was photographed.

More on this soon.

What better photographer to choose for documenting my work, which deals with fundaments of wellbeing like coming to terms with guilt and... let's say exploring different versions of truth, than one who is studying Psychology? 

Helena, who is a second year student at the Department of Psychology of Stockholm University told me that psychodynamic learnings are back in favor, CBT having been the number one choice for quite some time.

I much prefer a Freudian slip to a conscious slip of the tongue.

4 edible reds, 8 typographic ones

Taxi!

I had to take a cab yesterday when leaving the printshop to go downtown. 

The driver was a friendly fellow whose opening line was "Welcome," always a good start.

He seemed interested in the arts, asked me about the printshop and what kind of work they do.

And what did I do, he wondered.

Eager to tell my story I mentioned my "red project" and the exhibition at Rönnells, a place he seemed quite familiar with. "Pekka is a nice guy," he said, or something of the like.

My posters are about guilt and truth, I told him, in my mind bravely because of lack of obvious irony, and he went "Yeah, those are big deals," or something similar.

I peeked at his taxi driver ID and vaguely recognized his name: Bernt Hermele.

A former journalist turned taxi driver with his own blog (in Swedish only), Bernt Hermele made the TV-documentary "My Mother Was Murdered by a Suicide Bomber" in 2005. 

Now there's a big deal.

Embossing

Yesterday I finished the embossing of the prints. 

Every poster now has my monogram ex libris in the lower right corner. 

The embossing adds almost half a milimeter to every print, as is evident to the right on the picture below. 

This pile of six new posters contains some 300 prints.

(German speaking readers should not be offended by the film. This message comes in several languages.)

3 red flowers, 5 red interiors, 4 red exteriors, 2 red printshop pictures

The Red