It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, Chuck Sperry enjoyed working with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and creating this years poster!
Chuck talks about the design of it:
My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.
Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.
My balance toward the subject, elicited a Jordanian princess and her French noble husband to buy and frame my Edwardian Ball poster from 2011. They invited me for drinks on one of my trips to France. As they explained to me, “You must understand, we are decedents of this world, and even we think this world is outdated and bizarre. I’m impressed how you balanced your view of it, to depict its elegance and courageousness at the same time. It’s exactly the alienation we feel towards this past.”
I told them I was coming at the problem from the other direction, as a critique, and we laughed. I told them that I was still a warrior for the working class. Sometimes these worlds collide in rock and roll.
In this poster I depict King Edward VII, as a Masonic Zombie, supreme in his oligarchic entitlement, one hand on his sword (might at the ready) the other subduing his trained ape (the artist). The setting is British Imperial India, the colonies, and a map shows the imperial campaign: “Civilization” wages war against “Savages, Trolls, and The Great Unwashed.”
In this period of unfettered worldwide oligarchy, is it any wonder us apes are getting restless?
Edwardian Ball 2015
20 x 35 inches Signed and Numbered Edition of 125
3 colors on cream paper
Chuck will be making a very limited release of this poster (no variants – just an old school rock poster. I can hear Rene rejoicing now) on Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at a random time.
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