#18 Douglas Park, Secret Election Prizegiving Retail Discount, 2021. Printed Matter. Handmade 100% Cotton-Rag Paper 21 x 29.7 cm

In his hitherto unUNleashed Secret Election Bulk Prizegiving Retail Discount bedtime fairytale, Park somewhat or well & truly appraises life, work & times of German born, European active, UK deceased and internationally celebrated, paintrist & poeter, Kurt Schwitters and his “Merz” solo art & life movement or revolution; from out of obsolescence, destruction and remains; rebuilding, anew and better; born during World War 1, persistent until Schwitters’ death — but immortal ever since.

Schwitters christened his “Merz” solo art movement or revolution with a syllable taken from “Commerz Und Privatbank” (Commerical & Private Bank); seemingly he found and applied references, connotations, meaning and depth.
Sadly, Schwitters’ eponymous Merzbild (Merzpicture) suffered loss or destruction — although, much work and material survives.

Far more recently, UK “reality warpster”, Adam Chodzko, when commissioned to produce Kurt Schwitters and Merz themed project, upon him finding Commerz Und Privatbank still exists — Chodzko partly or very much dragged them into his work..

Another association is Gedicht / Poem / Poeme + Change / Exchange / Wechsel, diptych “chart” print, made by Marcel Broodthaers, Belgian pioneering conceptual artist (himself, defrocked and struck-off as poet — which severely affected his visual art — who once “honored” Kurt Schwitters with La Clef de l’ Horlogue / The Timepiece’s Key — brief movie — or “cinematographic poem”!).
Both panels of Broodthaers’ Gedicht / Poem / Poeme + Change / Exchange / Wechsel are columns and rows of his “MB” signature monogram entered repetitively in varying numbered amounts and “values” priced according to major trading currencies.

Broodthaers’ Gedicht / Poem / Poeme + Change / Exchange / Wechsel might at least link to 1 of his works featuring old bank kiosk windows — and that or similar in some swinging 60s “Poetry Olympics” — only for any filming and footage to suffer whatever fate — leaving memory, anecdotes, legend, mythology, uncertainty, assumption, guesswork and even lying or defeat as only “sectors” dependable, come to rescue and saving the day.

Then, during punk era, UK polymath, Billy Childish, opened a regional high-street bank account in Kurt Schwitters’ name.

When French process / visual / sound / performance author, Bernard Heidsieck (from Heidsieck champagne family) served as Banque Francaise du Commerce Exterieur’s vice-president, he at least proposed, attempted or even pulled-off bank statements and other material, with “constellated” information (or fizzing bubbles?).

In The Rebel (aka Call Me Genius), UK 1961 satirical comedy film, Tony Hancock, acted same-named main-lead character, assembly-line battery-farm penpusher — and closet “infantilist “ and shapeist” artist — whose drawing cartoon-portraiture and illuminated manuscripts onto stationery at work became his “epiphany” (much later on, London Institute of Pataphysics remade Anthony Aloysius Hancock’s lost “masterpieces”, for his “retrospective”, at London’s Foundry).

Exponents who play with real currency and homegrow their own.
For example: Genpei Akasegawa & Hi Red Center copying (not forgery or usage) of ¥ banknotes; offending-specimens seizure by law-enforcement (attached official labels kept and left); procedures documented in their A Bundle of Events, editing & design by Shigeko Kubota & George Maciunas, published by Fluxus, New York, 1965; despite Akasegawa & Hi Red Center’s manifestations and authority investigation being early 60s, court-case trials were after they disbanded; around same timescale, artist-lawyer, Iqbal Jafree’s Hyper-Occurrence, invite-only admission-fee spectacle, where takings were destroyed.

Anyway, Secret Election Bulk Prizegiving Retail Discount is Park’s 1st UK real-life and offline exposure since Zed Nelson’s 2019 The Street (documentary, chronicling changes to London’s Hoxton Street), included footage of him, reciting his Vinetrilogue poem, at PEER gallery, for their 2018 Urban Harvest exhibition, by acclaimed photo-artist, Rut Blees Luxemburg.

She is 1 of Park’s most long-running and recidivistic serial collaborators-in-crime; as well as them being in same ventures together, he has also written about her work.

These outlets number: Blees Luxemburg’s Welsh solo exhibition catalog; Miser & Now glossy magazine; Black Dog Press’ Commonsensual Rut Blees Luxemburg monograph; Transport for London’s The Roundel TfL sign appraisal book; Tapio Snellman & Lynch Architect’s Silver Forest public architecture film; Belmacz Mayfair’s Ashtray Show catalog; her The Lesson of the Wine anthology.

Alongside Park contributing input to other publications and solo items (books, periodicals, audio releases, moving image, websites — with work translated into different languages — Arabic, Welsh, French, German, Dutch, Polish, Italian, Korean and Danish).

Further recidivistic serial collaborators-in-crime: Luis Carvajal, Marcel Crabeels, Richard Crow, Clementine Deliss, Sonia Dermience, Daniel Dewar & Gregory Gicquel, Nico Dockx, Claire Fontaine, Tony Gross, Peter Lewis, Jan Mast, Michelle Naismith, Kurt Ryslavy, Mark Aerial Waller, Keef Winter.

Other noteworthy highlights: recent co-origination and directing with classical flutist, Oriana Dierinck (herself, self-founder and driving-force behind independent Zvezdoliki music ensemble) of Groundflour events venue and outreach program, at their home, in Borgerhout, Antwerpen.

Earlier such projects: originator, Grapeshot Bullseye Harvest, group exhibition, Attache Gallery, London; co-originator, with Alfred Camp, The Gallery Has Been Completely Vandalized!, 97-99 Projects, London; co-curator, with Raul Pina Perez, Dionysian Duty, group exhibition, Mezkalito Gallery, London; “Deacon”, Spectre vs. Rector, group exhibition, curated by the Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly, Residence Gallery, London; originator, By Accident, idiom & genre historical survey blokbusta, several incarnations.

As for still more facets: his 2016 Post-Terminal & Ex-Ultimate art residency, exhibition and events program, with self-chosen invitees (including 24 hour long live interview marathon!), at WEST, Den Haag.
Previous art residencies: Ecole des Beaux Arts Nantes, Frankfurt Stadelschule’s Gasthof; AAIR Antwerpen; Ateliers Des Arques; 2013 Douglasism festival, with various contributors, projects and events, Seoul and Jeju, Korea (and Greatest Hits solo spoken word album and Douglasism book); not forgetting ventures connected to institutions (Chelsea Art & Design School London, Cittadellarte Biella, Cite des Arts Paris, DAAD Berlin, Edinburgh Art School, Ujazdowski Castle CCA Warsaw, Komplot Brussels, Nossadella Due Bologna, I.S.P.D NYC).

Exhibition appearances and live event performances add up and multiply.

A few broadcasts: Radio Skylark, London; Ultra Eczema, Antwerp; Le Nez dans L’Œil, Brussels; Make Your Own [filtered word] Music, London; Breakthrough, Berlin; Corner, Seoul; Wolkenbreiers, Antwerp.

Back to Secret Election Bulk Prizegiving Retail Discount all over again.

Finally, out now, at long last.

Nature and life-force, up against economics, with both joined by creativity.