Round Jean Lanfrey's Place

 

The smear campaign against absinthe and the ills of so-called absinthism in early 20th century Europe were strong. The prohibition of absinthe finally found its cause celebre in the case of Jean Lanfrey, a Swiss man who murdered his family after drinking a sizeable quantity of alcohol that ended with two glasses of absinthe. In Round Jean Lanfrey’s Place, the landscape of a Swiss prohibition poster has been rid of it’s ghoulish skeleton and terrorised citizens, leaving a painted landscape and an ownerless wreath behind. An Art Nouveau rendered of the phrase ‘The (Green) Hour’ in Arabic has been added. 

 

This poster was pasted in Stella’s Groceries & Vegetables in Peckham Rye as part of Off to Mahoganny, curated by Canan Batur.

​