The Hague of Holland, the greenest city in Europe, has a fairly new but a very intresting organisation nonetheless called <>TAG. <>TAG took such an intrest in our Exposif project they decided to collaborate on a big scale: this 4th of June until 9th July there are 2 simultaneous Exposif exhibitions at Gallery 1646 and <>TAG.

And who's the mastermind behind this three-pronged Exposif fest? The wondrous Hicham Khalidi and his colleques at <>TAG, which manifests itself as a physical and online environment in which creatives from all walks of life and backgrounds as diverse as graphic design, fashion, video art, web design, music, and autonomous arts, can meet to exchange ideas and initiate new projects.

Their PR Pitch says it all: 'a new organization that unites contemporary movements in the arts, media, science and society into projects and presents these in various formats. the main goal is to create a brand that stands for quality, supports the exchange of information and can find it’s way to the market'. although has a place of its own it frequently stages projects and events across town at other locations with many collaborators.

<>TAG HQ, to be found the centre of The Hague, offers 200 square meters for exhibitions, lectures, live avant garde music, film and video, as well as working space for <>TAG members to perfom their more lucrative assignments.

For Exposif in The Hague, <>TAG has selected 4 of its esteemed members, Mauro Paolozzi, Jackson Chang, Peter Zuiderwijk en Don&Ten of Studio Dumbar (!!) , to create a wallpaper and bring that unique Dutch flava to the collection; something we're very pleased with, expect these designs anytime soon within these pages...

A related little conference and lecture on this project was held at the Zeebelt Theatre in The Hague, organised by the friendly folks of impressive foundation Zefir7. Read the follwing article on that evening by Bart de Haas;

Exposif Wallpaper / 09 jun 05

Max (’Ich bin ein Hagenees’) Akkerman is crazy about graphic design: ‘fantastic’, ‘super’. He considers it Art.

Meters high, up on the wall with it, Max thought, and he invited renowned present-day designers to create wallpaper.

Max may hail from The Hague, but he resides in Barcelona, where he started his wallpaper project under the aegis of Maxalot.

What it actually is, wallpaper, one might be led to consider an easy question, but in Zeebelt opinions were not in agreement. To Max an enlarged (super)detailed illustration without repetition is wallpaper, no less than a patterned one is, perhaps even more so. Ample occasion for wide-ranging philosophizing about the origin and function of wallpaper, fuelled by designer Peter Zuiderwijk, who he had delved deep into the history of wallpaper and the seventeen possible variants of repetition. Apparently, the Romans had already made use of wallpaper (‘sure, those guys had taste’), and wallpaper has everything to do with power, status, and romanticism.

Somebody considered the main difference between wallpaper and art, that one can hang art on wallpaper but not the other way round. Someone else only saw visual and fashionable explosions in the presentation and found something essential lacking, to wit the repetitive tradition, or playing upon this. This criticism was endorsed by designer-cowboys Ten & Don (Oklahoma and Kentucky). Their wallpaper (Cum&Join) looked the most conventional of all. Pastel hues, repetition and printing that was carefully non-sequential, presented by the designers as bedroom-wallpaper for masculine adults. The pattern does indeed present adult males in relaxed postures, from the native regions of both of them. Initiator Max would not wish to have it on his walls, but then, although a male adult imself, he does not belong to their target group, according to Don. He sees primarily its price as its exclusive aspect -- like all the other Maxalot-wallpapers a multiple sum of those in the Stahlecker catalogue.

Designer Peter Zuiderwijk was bashed by someone who found his design just as boring and grey as the transforming repetitions of graphic artist M.C, Escher; and some further musing went on about the future of wallpaper, television-wallpaper, and wall-to-wall blue screens. In short, this wallpaper excited the emotions just as much as any family faced with the problem of selecting one.