Elizabeth James at the National Art Library in London gave a wonderful
introductory talk to the collection - housed in the library, which is
inside the V&A Museum - of artists books, today (Monday) at 2.30pm in the
afternoon. I wish more of 'us' had been there. Elizabeth, who is on the
list and did advertise the talk 'here', had chosen works which were,
broadly, examples of collaborations and in which the text was 'poetic'.
Some real treasures had been brought out and made available. After the
talk, most of the items were there to be examined, read and (!) handled.
Personal highlights:
Blasie Cendrars, Sonia Delaunay, _La prose de Transsiberien et de la petite
Jehanne de France ..._ Editions des hommes nouveaux: Paris, 1913 (and see
Rothenberg & Joris' _Poems for the Millennium_ Vol. 1)
- too hot to handle.
Iliazd (ed.) _Poesie de mots inconnus_ La Degre: Paris, 1949.
- This was a cornucopia of artist/poet collaborations in a convenient,
almost pocket-book format. Several fasicles in one open ? vellum case
contained leaves folding out to reveal work (the artists' stuff was
editioned with the texts as lithographs/etchings etc.) by (and I'm just
picking from a long list): Arp, Artaud, Ball, Braque, Hausmann, Jolas,
Khlebnikov, Matisse, Miro, Picasso, Schwitters, Tzara .....
Stephane Mallarme, Neil Crawford, Ian Tyson. _A cast of dice never can
annul chance_ Tetrad/Imprint: London, 1985
- superb English rendering (in the various materials of book art and
language art) of the famous seed text
Stephane Mallarme, Marcel Broothaers _Image: Un coup de des jamais
n'abolira le hasard_ Antwerp, 1969
- weighted rules in the page positions of Mallarme's original typography
replace the text itself, producing an abstract (grammatological) work
representing spatial rhythms corresponding to the 'original'. A beautiful,
revealing erasure.
Basil Bunting, James Hugonin. _Ode for Basil Bunting_ Imprints: London, 1986
John Ashberry (et al.) _Self-portrait in a convex mirror_ Arion: San
Francisco, 1984.
There was lots more, but perhaps you are all absent, and I must get back to
other things. Elizabeth had a fuller bibliography of the works discussed
which she handed out. Perhaps this are on disk? Perhaps she could be
persuaded to post it to the list?
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John Cayley / Wellsweep Press http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/
1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK
Tel & Fax: (+44 171) 267 3525 Email: [log in to unmask]
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