Not long ago, travel wasn’t so easy and ubiquitous as it is today. Long reserved for the rich, the so called “golden age of travel”, which lasted from the 1950s to 1970s, was defined by excess: from caviar and five course meals, to roomy cabins and world class service. By the ’70s, however, mass tourism began to take place and droves of people began to rediscover the world after decades of war.
As it was then, the promotional t-shirt has become a universal symbol of travel and mass tourism. French multidisciplinary artist Melchior Tersen tapped into this accessible souvenir as the theme of a new photo book which paints a portrait on the intersection of travel and commerce.
Published by TOPSAFE, Voyage Voyage chronicles the Parisian artist’s treasure trove of t-shirts and images he’s taken over the years. Whether a timeless Joe Cool t-shirt from New York or a cheesy image of the Mona Lisa dabbing, the book reflects Tersen’s “obsession with mass consumerism but also, more importantly, gives us an insight into the artist’s psyche – he writes that sleeping in a tourist T-shirt allows him to dream,” noted the publisher.
Voyage Voyage spans 424 pages and is offset printed on 350gsm Arena Smooth Natural paper for the cover and 120 gsm Arena Smooth Natural paper for the interior. Limited to an edition of 1,000, the book is available to purchase for $60 USD at TOPSAFE and Actual Source.
Elsewhere, Kenny Scharf takes over The Journal Gallery in New York.
