Essence and Excess

The book collects drawings of a series of products that represent the excesses of a superficial and uncritical consumerism, excesses to which we have become irresponsibly addicted over the past fifty years, changing our planet’s environment. These products are all things that we could easily do without, but the production system, spurred on by advertising, has managed to convert them into products that are absolutely indispensible for mankind.

In Paolo Ulian’s drawings, these products, for example, a bottle of weed killer, are put next to essential objects, in this case, a small hoe, which has the same function as the weed killer, but is healthier from all points of view, therefore creating pairs for functional analogy and ethical contrast; one product expressing the excesses of consumerism, and another expressing the essence.