| Description: | A pizza-box converted into silver collection box contains the poster and catalogue for the ultimate manifestation of cooperation Frans Haks the curator of the Groningen museum and Stolk. A catalogue for the exhibition Business Art / Art Business from 1993. The exhibition presented various ideas about the changing role of art and commerce, which Haks investigated for years, took root here. Haks saw the poster as a new and independent artistic medium, advertising as the field of architecture and typography and business as the ultimate art form.
Within the provocative exhibition a room was annexed for Stolk, and transformed into a shop for his own merchandising; where Swip Stolk itself is a brand that can be added to anything: posters, watches, ties, a pair of shoes of Jan Jansen.
"The products were not intended as an autonomous design? Stolk says in the catalog,"but acted more like objects in a discussion on originality, copyright and plagiarism.? Stolk emancipated himself; the designer from being servant to becoming the main player.
Swip Stolk?s (1944-2019) career started at age fifteen when he entered employment of an advertising agency. He dropped out of Gerrit Rietveld Academy?s evening class, as he didn?t want to have anything to do with conventions and couldn?t stand the academic character of the studies. While some might be ashamed of not having finished any formal education, it filled Swip Stolk with pride. A self-made man, he looked back with satisfaction on his early years: becoming a professional was his aim. This says something about his approach to his work: for a self-taught designer the learning process never ends.
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