The Bad Air Smelled of Roses

RUBIX INSTALLATION

The Bad Air Smelled of Roses

Through December 1, 2021

Pedro Lasch, Hannah Homma Tong '21, and Bill Fick with “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses”

AAHVS lecturing fellow and printmaker Bill Fick’s “Poster Design and Printing” class (ARTSVIS 290S) completed a major, semester-long project, “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses: A Silkscreen, Wheat Paste Project at Duke University,” which is now installed on The RUBIX. The installation will be on display through December 1.

Lily Posternak ‘21

Fick’s students collaborated on artist Carl Pope Jr.’s ongoing project, “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses,” by screen-printing 22 posters during the Spring semester class and wheatpasting them onto The RUBIX, a pop-up installation space on campus behind the Rubenstein Arts Center. Pope provided 22 new slogans for the class, allowing the students to come up with the designs. Pope’s project, an “ongoing essay about the presence and function of Blackness in society,” originally began in 2004.

Camille Wilder ‘21 and Yuexuan Chen ‘21

Pope’s initial involvement with Duke began through the FHI Social Practice Lab, where he was invited to speak by its director Pedro Lasch, research professor in AAHVS, as well as the creation of The RUBIX by Fick and fellow AAHVS instructor Stephen Hayes. 

Additional information and stories about the class project and Pope can be found at: 

https://arts.duke.edu/news/art-as-public-intervention-carl-popes-the-bad-air-smelled-of-roses

https://artscenter.duke.edu/projects/the-bad-air-smelled-of-roses-a-silk-screen-wheat-paste-project/