Séripop – exhibition essay by Lisa Turner

Séripop is the name under which Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum create screen-printed posters, album covers, books, prints, and most recently print installations. This Montreal duo has made a name for itself based primarily on their bold colours, experimental, graphic approach, and pop aesthetic.

Initially the two produced numerous screen-printed posters for their band AIDS Wolf, and others; postering them around the cities they perform in. Over time the works were torn down, collected, obscured and covered by other promotions, and the posters’ pristine appearance was transformed or destroyed by the elements. These days Séripop rarely produces posters in this vein, and has since focused their creative energy on reinterpreting the poster and this experience.

La Battue, an installation made for the gallery space draws on this history as Seripop employs screen-printed posters to cover the floor and walls of the gallery space. Prints are layered on top of each other as one would experience on the city streets – though this layering is perhaps not evident initially. A grinning face that consumes the majority of the floor space, stares up at the viewer, while a row of pyramids creates what looks like a crown, hovering above it’s head on the wall. An anthropomorphic figure with the thought bubble “J’en ai rien à” meaning “I don’t give a” inhabits the wall space.

By presenting the urban inside the gallery, Seripop aims to draw attention to the street poster as a topographical marker, while commenting on the poster’s ephemeral state. As visitors attend the exhibition (and walk over the posters) the layers of prints are gradually revealed through the physical deterioration caused by this “foot traffic”. The work, produced with standard industry poster paper, can only withstand so much wear and tear; thus the piece is in constant state of flux as gallery-goers participate in an ongoing revision of the artwork. A camera provides daily documentation of this transformation, culminating in the final “resolution” of the piece at exhibitions’ end. This result, is suggested in the works’ title La Battue, a term that is often used to describe the search for a missing person in the woods, or a large manhunt. However the end result of the search is always uncertain, much like the final state of the piece.

Seen in this context, the work may be viewed as a reinterpretation of the poster: subverting its traditional communicative function, to act as a metaphor for change, time, accumulation, and deterioration, amongst other things. The work also draws attention to the commodity nature of works of art, as Seripop challenges the traditional reverential presentation of “the object” within the gallery space. The poster, taken from its everyday setting has been placed on display in the institution, however it may ultimately suffer the same fate that it does out in the world. This metaphor raises interesting questions: Does the gallery serve to elevate the print from common advertising to fine art – breaking down the barrier between art and life – or does the institutionalization of this art form represent another kind of weather? In either case, the resulting visual experience is rewarding, and we as the viewers are richer for having engaged with the show.