Julian Siffert

(On rit), 2023

Fine Art
Aluminum, WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (print), acrylic glass

30cm x 21cm

Thinking about transparency, international trade and supervillains. Most pieces from my show "to fly through the mouths of men" try to think issues of intellectual property and copyright through the figure of the Joker. An idea of property and a trickster that share a sense of blurriness and fluidity, that lack a groundedness in concrete materiality which allows them to shapeshift.

While in exile in 1869, French writer Victor Hugo wrote L'Homme qui rit (The Man Who Laughs), a novel about a man who is mutilated by the aristocracy to wear a permanent smile. A still image of the film adaption of this book, showing Conrad Veith as the movie's main character Gwynplaine, inspired the design of the Batman Joker in 1940. Through the smile of this film still, (On rit) makes readable the 5th page of the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO. The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the multilateral trading system for the first time in the 1990s and remains the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property to date. It also includes the so-called Berne Convention from 1886 – mentioned on page 5. This first international copyright agreement was developed at the instigation of Victor Hugo, who was also active as a politician.