Playfair? was originally designed as 2m x 1m banner for The Synaesthesia show curated by Warhol Factory alumnus Ronnie Cutrone at Mary Anthony Gallery on Broadway NYC (Mar. 1995) and tweaked for TDR’s part in the group show ‘Customised Terror’ curated by Yale’s Ronald Jones at Artists Space Gallery in NYC later in Summer 1995 (along with Design Will Eat Itself?, Flesh, Work Buy Consume Die and the Bank of Jesus triptych etc) and slightly re-engineered for TDR’s own Customised Terror show at The Forum in Sheffield.

Playfair? (this version) was part of a series kinda exploring (the morality of) consumerism and the twist of sex sells riffing on playboy, Sony (its a Republic) and Pop Eating Itself dressed up as a snapshot of neon-Shibuya / Piccadilly Circus and Times Square… Refashioning The Fashioned Lest It Stiffen Into Iron Is The Work Of Endless Vital Activity was the pitch.

This A3 print design, available here as an A2 uncut printers proof dated 06/07/96, was adapted for a series of prints published in conjunction with the Forum show. The original print run was 100, and a small number of proofs were supplied by the printer to check the print’s colour and repro.

Like all printer’s proofs these have never been commercially available being archived subsequent to serving their practical sign-off purpose prior to the print / crop of / for the finished product.

We’ve uncovered two versions, one is a test print without the final gold overprint (so, less than but in some ways ‘more than’) while this one has the gold overlay test in place.