You Are Not Alone

2012

Felt and webbing

30 x 28000cm

The foundations of Otto Berchem’s recent work is a chromatic alphabet of his own creation. The alphabet is inspired by the writings of Jorge Adoum and Vladimir Nabokov, Peter Saville’s designs for the first three New Order albums, and the condition of Synaesthesia. With this alphabet, he has created text pieces in the forms of drawings, photographs, photo collages, paintings, and a public interventions.

For the Bangkok edition of You Are Not Alone, Berchem once again employs his alphabet. This time in the form of a festive installation, composed of streamer pennants. While pennants are superficially decorative, they also delineate and define the space. The work echoes the (sometimes loaded) meaning of certain colors in Thailand, where each day of the week is assigned a color: Monday – Yellow, Tuesday – Pink, Wednesday – Green, etc.

To the unknowing viewer, the work is a festive installation consisting of a series of colors. The fact is, Berchem choice of colors spell out a text, which also happens to be the title of the exhibition – You Are Not Alone.