2009
Archival digital print on stretched canvas Showing in London Art Fair 2021
Edition number: 1 of 10
‘In 1959, a Scottish nationalist group known as the Scottish Secretariat had proposed that the bicentenary of Burns’ birth might be commemorated in an official stamp. This proposal was rejected. Nevertheless, an unofficial stamp was created by this group, the ‘Twa Plack’, a ‘plack’ being an old Scottish coin of little value. The stamp was ‘minted’ in small numbers and distributed in the streets and stuck on public buildings, a kind of samizdat intervention.
‘Colvin was keen to celebrate this act of rebellion and created his own work. He stretched the commemoration from 1759, the year of Burns’ birth, to 2009, the year of the photograph’s creation and he emblazoned his image with the words from Burns’ rousing song, Scots Wha Hae. Here was Burns presented as the signifier of dissent and rebellion, in some degree, a model for change in the contemporary period.’ – Tom Normand, in The Constructed Worlds of Calum Colvin: Symbol, Allegory, Myth
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