APES OF SPADES
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PLAYING CARDS
Apes of Spades is a limited edition card game by Philipp Zurmöhle.
Anthropomorphic monkeys serve as characters for the face cards. 100 sets of playing cards – signed and numbered – were produced by traditional Viennese manufacturer Piatnik while the boxes were handmade in Nürnberg Germany.
Each suit has a certain theme. The spades suit deals with magic and supernatural phenomenons.
The hearts cards are connected to nature. The monkeys depicted on the clubs cards combine symbols and relics of different religions. The Diamond suit shows the monkeys representing allegories of war.
All illustrations were hand-drawn with a pencil and aquarelle coloured. The originals and card games were exhibited at Philipp Zurmöhle's solo show "Gathering Fortunes" in 2015.
Exhibition views from the "Gathering Fortunes" exhibition
at Laurentiu Feller – Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst in 2015:
