Farbe - Macht -Erinnerung

Rozbeh Asmani artistically explores the aesthetics of capitalism. His work series Colourmarks is the product of an on-going research into the field of colour trademarks registered at the German Patent and Trademark Office. He visualizes their impact on our collective memory when used exclusively by corporations as part of their corporate identities. By way of silk screening and c-printing he produces abstract colour plates. Confronted with the question what these colours stand for, the beholder’s attention is raised to the complex link between colour, power, and memory. His new series of silk screens deals with colours protected by trademark law in their respective fields of usage: the colour design of petrol stations or pumps of a large petroleum corporation as well as the vehicle and overall of a haulage firm or the blue round with writing of a crème box. One view is often enough in order to be reminded not only of the exact trademark, but also of the time and circumstances of our encounter with these products and services. In the U.S. hundreds of chrysanthema have been patented as decorative plants, since their ingredients are of great interest to the industry. Based on their depictions in patent files, Rozbeh Asmani has printed photogravures. Zwieback and Underberg are three-dimensional shapes protected by trademark law in Germany. In his bronze casts, Rozbeh Asmani appropriates them to himself in an ironic way.