The Regime

(1998–2003)

The series is as much a state­ment as it is an inquiry into our mil­i­ta­rized present

“Today a fas­ci­nat­ing lan­guage is spo­ken world­wide, using words such as cam­paign, tar­get, strat­e­gy, which have a per­sis­tent mil­i­tary fla­vor: a sort of metal­lic ketchup to cam­ou­flage the taste of grind meat.”

The Big MAChine — Ani­ma­tion of an acrylic paint­ing — Shown in 2003
Shoá Muse­um, Buenos Aires
RP Browne at the Anti­war Ral­ly, 2003

Between 1999 and 2003 RP Browne worked on NN — THE REGIME, a crit­i­cal series of large acrylics on the sub­jects of war, mech­a­niza­tion and impo­si­tion of a glob­al­ly mar­ket­ed soci­ety. Very aware of the hid­den impli­ca­tions of the so called “glob­al­iza­tion”, the artist delves into the dark­est pools of the 20th cen­tu­ry (includ­ing that of his own country’s) to retrieve a whole set of shock­ing imagery. The result­ing series is as much a state­ment as it is an inquiry into our mil­i­ta­rized present.

In Feb­ru­ary and March 2003, along with mil­lions around the world, RP Browne took part in the anti-war ral­ly against the inva­sion of Iraq, using one of the series trip­tychs (“The Ham­burg Con­fer­ence”) as a demon­stra­tion plac­ard. Months lat­er, in Novem­ber, the paint­ings were shown in the Shoá (Holo­caust) Muse­um of Buenos Aires. At the open­ing the artist received the praise and com­ments of the attend­ing Sur­vivors of the Holo­caust. The exhi­bi­tion includ­ed a cryp­tic text beside each paint­ing, and an ani­ma­tion of “The Big MAChine”, pro­ject­ed on the Museum’s atria.

NN — THE REGIME — texts by RP Browne


The war appeared when I was bare­ly five years of age. Many names dis­ap­peared along with it and a No Name gen­er­al­ized: NN.
This war arrived by impor­ta­tion, and not just here: like sesame seeds land­ing over a round bun, the blue globe was sprin­kled with white stars and red rivers.
The gray mat­ter for this process came in long antic­i­pa­tion from the North Sea, trans­port­ed in the shad­ows by a sub­ma­rine, or spe­cial­ly invit­ed by some Amer­i­can coun­try. As for the red one, indis­pens­able for the gear to work prop­er­ly (that is to say, at all times), it was bought cheap, obtained at point-blank or even deliv­ered as a gift.

Every­thing turned out per­fect, accord­ing to a metic­u­lous plan pre­scribed by the Regime. Today a fas­ci­nat­ing lan­guage is spo­ken world­wide, using words such as “cam­paign”, “tar­get”, “strat­e­gy”, which have a per­sis­tent mil­i­tary fla­vor: a sort of metal­lic ketchup to cam­ou­flage the taste of grind meat.

Idyl­li­um

The most deliri­ous dreams are the eas­i­est to sell; it just takes a few mil­lion souls full of hunger and illu­sion. Every­one will give away some hope and obe­di­ent­ly put it in the waste bin, from which the texts for a mag­net­ic and mov­ing speech will be extract­ed. The Big Moth­er calls out for dinner.

Idyl­li­um — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF — 120 x 170 cm
The flag bearer

The XX cen­tu­ry is over. The most impor­tant struc­ture it left behind (per­haps for anoth­er thou­sand years) is an aston­ish­ing Steel Counter,  vis­i­ble even from the moon. Unlike the Iron Cur­tain (its inno­cent pre­de­ces­sor), it does­n’t real­ly mat­ter on which side one stands: from now on there’s only one. It is our duty, as inhab­i­tant-employ­ees of The Regime, to keep the floor shin­ny so on its glow­ing reflec­tion the illu­sion of a medal looks double.

The Flag Bear­er — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF 70 x 175 cm

New ! Online Shop 

thumb-the-swamp-i-circ

shop now!

Man­ag­er General

Why would enough be enough, when EVERYTHING could be pos­sessed? Just orga­nize a Regime: effi­cien­cy, effi­cien­cy, effi­cien­cy. What­ev­er else is irrel­e­vant.  Shar­ing? Stim­u­lat­ing? No use. Crumbs will always fall off the table, while the cap­i­tal as a whole remains upon. Nei­ther it mat­ters that the meat gets cor­rupt­ed, or…isn’t the wrap­ping more impor­tant that the contents?

The Man­ag­er Gen­er­al — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF- 65 x 83 cm
Leben­sraum — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF — 125 x 146 cm
Leben­sraum, Vital Space

The instru­men­ta­tion of the Regime is only pos­si­ble through the tri­umph of the will. We should tres­pass the bor­ders that sep­a­rates US from what belong to US (the exten­sion of our being), and by the way, of our body. The price is min­i­mal: a blitzkrieg com­bo, to be paid by our neighbor.

The Regime’s Candidate
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Look­ing at the paint­ing in today’s light, I see both can­di­dates as the one and only clown

The Ham­burg Conference

His­to­ry books are nev­er wrong, least of all those which review it. A lot has been writ­ten about the Con­fer­ence of Yal­ta, but sad­ly very lit­tle about the one in Ham­burg, dur­ing which the foun­da­tions of a hap­py new world where dug. Although trust was­n’t in much abun­dance, mem­o­rable moments where shared and jokes where told… That’s what clowns are in it for.

The Ham­burg Con­fer­ence — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF- 201 x 140 cm
The BIG MAChine

There’s an urban myth refer­ring to ham­burg­ers being made out of worms. How could such slick crea­tures be a part of our diet? Every expla­na­tion seems irra­tional: by means of a genet­ic exper­i­ment, for tidi­ness nonob­ser­vance, or love of nature. How­ev­er, here lies the key: every­one is a cog with­in a nat­ur­al mech­a­nism, con­cern­ing of course, the same species every time. The machine nev­er stops.

The Big­MA­Chine — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF- 183 x 120 cm
KZ Ball pit

Should a Father of mod­ern glob­al mar­ket­ing be appoint­ed, the dis­tinc­tion could fall on Dr Joseph Goebbel­s’s bony shoul­ders. His work for the insane cause was bril­liant; he man­aged through stud­ies and efforts to con­vince an entire nation that the Gold­en Arch­es of Val­hal­la were around the cor­ner — or Poland. Cred­it should not be giv­en, despite cer­tain indi­ca­tions, to the rumors insist­ing that he had a called dog Pavlov. Rather, it should go to those who said that he sin­cere­ly loved his chil­dren, who played with uncle Adolf until the very last day. This deep love for The Home­land, for pro­pa­gan­da (his voca­tion) and for his six off­spring was demon­strat­ed for pos­ter­i­ty in a last and hero­ic act pri­or to his sui­cide: in col­lu­sion with his wife Mag­da, he gave them a dark, sweet and poi­soned drink that extin­guished each six inno­cent lives.

KZ Ball Pit — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF- 260 x 183 cm
KZ Ball Pit — The Regime Series — Acrylic on MDF– DETAILS

New ! Online Shop 

thumb-the-swamp-i-circ

shop now!

THE REGIME NN - Cred­its: -The BIG MAChine ani­ma­tion: Juan Igna­cio Pérez Dos San­tos — Cura­tor­ship at the Shoá Muse­um Buenos Aires: Irene Jaievsky - Spon­sor­ship Man­age­ment for the exhi­bi­tion: Raquel Dos San­tos - Anti­war Ral­ly Sup­port and pho­tographs: J.I.Pérez DS- Axel Springer- Eze­quiel Diaz Ortiz

Copy­right RP Browne 2017 — For Infor­ma­tion regard­ing RP Browne’s work please con­tact the artist at info@rpbrowne.com



error: Content is protected !!