Curious, humorous and anonymous: Ian Harris’s Argos art postcard interventions
/A selection of the 60 appended cards Harris placed in London art gallery and museum shops. No reproduction without permission//
//The Death Of Marat, Jacques-Louis David, 1793. No reproduction without permission//
//Charles I, Daniel Mytens, 1631. Card from National Portrait Gallery. No reproduction without permission//
Ian Harris is a man of many parts, having been at various stages in his life a successful graphic artist, fashion designer, homewares retailer and musician/performer, notably with late 60s blues-rock group The Earth and as his mod revival alter ego Terry Tonik.
Just this week Harris let me in on a curious, humorous and anonymous public intervention series he staged in London galleries and museums a few years back.
//Thomas Cranmer, Gerlach Flicke, 1545. Card from NPG. No reproduction without permission//
//The Gleaners, Jean-Francois Millet, 1857. No reproduction without permission//
Harris bought two sets of 60 postcards from a variety of institutions, among them Tate Britain, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Imperial War Museum, and meticulously inserted found images of everyday domestic and natural objects – many from a catalogue for home-order company Argos – into the prominent works of art on the front of each of them.
//Past And Present No 1, Augustus Leopold Egg, 1858. Card from Tate Britain. No reproduction without permission//
//The Capel Family, Cornelius Johnson c1640. From NPG. No reproduction without permission//
Keeping one set for himself, he returned and placed the appended cards back in the sales racks as a surprise for the casual browsers and shop assistants who might come across, say, Jacques-Louis David’s The Death Of Marat completed with the addition of a bathroom cabinet, lavatory roll and folded towels, or John Betjeman strolling through Degas’ Ball At The Moulin De La Galette.
//Ball At The Moulin De La Galette, Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876. No reproduction without permission//
//Mariana, John Everett Millais, 1851. No reproduction without permission//
The use of mocking puns and jarring juxtapositions puts me in mind of the Orton/Halliwell library book defacements. The gentleness and sly wit of Harris’s interventions – combined with the knowledge we will likely never discover the reaction from the public – makes them just as intriguing.
Catch up on Harris and his activities here.
• Thanks to Ian for allowing me to reproduce this selection from his series.