“Why copy an album of postage stamps from the former Belgian Congo, page after page, stamp after stamp, and so precisely in terms of dimensions, illustrations and colours? Despite the initial confusion about Tuur and Flup Marinus’ project, when confronted by the materiality it soon becomes clear that there’s something interesting going on here. We see perfectly reproduced sheets; sets of exotic stamps in soft hues, protected by a transparent strip of varnish, and framed by an intrusive black background. Go on looking and this painterly appropriation becomes the magnifying glass and the mirror which unmask the colonial rhetoric.”
