Henri Chopin | Typewriter poems

Henri Chopin

Typewriter poems

Köln, Germany: Edition Hundertmark, 1982

[16] pp., 20.5 x 14.6 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 500 signed, numbered and dated copies

Part of the legendary Hundertmark series, this slim volume features a series of Dactylopoèmes -  a term the artist first coined during the 1960s to refer to a new genre of poetry produced through the meticulous layering of letters, numbers, and signs onto a sheet of paper.

“By manipulating modern-age technology, Chopin seeks to access the primal expanse of communication, the infinity beyond symbolic meaning. The tape recorder makes possible the elongation and elaboration of sound shapes, makes audible the normally inaudible. Similarly, the typewriter, in its perfect repetitious typescript, showcases the “architectural skeleton” or pure form of letters and words. In this way, Chopin simultaneously engages the mysterious archaic and the mechanical state-of-the-art”. Chopin’s innovative sonic compositions range from the vocal incarnation of a rocket flight in 1963, through a composition deploying the sounds of the air in the human body in 1966, to a dark and atmospheric work from 1969 consisting of laughter while his typewriter poems evidence the artist’s interest in performative writing and his preoccupation with a relationship between the order and disorder. For Michel Giroud, Henri Chopin is an explorer of a terra incognita, of an infro- and ultra-poetry of pure energy that goes beyond language: “he introduces the primary poetry, in the sense of Novalis, that is poetry as energy, the primary planetary poetry of the corporal space”.

- Sara Softness

Robert Filliou | There Was A Drawing In the Centre of this Page

Robert Filliou

There Was A Drawing In the Centre of this Page

Köln, Germany: Galerie and Edition Hundertmark, 1993

[24] pp., 21 x 14.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 500

One of my favorites in the Hundertmark Booklet series is not an artists' book, but this posthumous catalogue listing many of Filliou's editions and multiples (for Hundertmark, but also other publishers, such as Vice-Versand, Zona, Edition Block and other contemporaries of Armin Hundertmark). Black and white images of A Most Curious Invention of Gaga Yogi, the LEEDS card game, Information Box, the Sans Object brick,  the Optimistic Boxes, Monsters Are Inoffensive, and many other works are accompanied by brief descriptions. 

Filliou died in December of 1987, five or six years before this publication, though it's possible that it could have been arranged many years prior to publication. Dorothy Iannone contributes a two page remembrance about Filliou, his partner Marianne and their child Marcelline. She calls him warm and wise and notes that she never - in twenty years - heard him say anything trivial: 

"When he spoke it was usually of the things we care most about. He dealt with them seriously, humorously, sometimes even sadly or bitterly, at times joyously, but he always seemed to abide by the heart of the matter."

The best part of the publication is the reproduction of a drawing Filliou gifted Armin Hundertmark nearly twenty years earlier, which is where the booklet takes its title, also. 

Last month Micah Lexier posted an image of the book to his Instagram account, alongside the promotional announcement, see below. 

Takako Saito

 

There are unconfirmed reports that Takako Saito has died. RIP. 

Al Hansen | Andy Warhol Box

Al Hansen

Andy Warhol Box (Drei Attentat Bilder)

Cologne, Germany: Hundertmark Editions, 1986

16.5 × 22.5 × 1.5 cm.

Edition of 30 signed, dated and numbered copies

On June 3rd, 1968, Gerard Malanga, Al Hansen and three others visited Andy Warhol’s Factory, to pick up a cheque. 

"The [elevator] door opened on madness," recalled Hansen. "Mario Amaya jumping around, blood all over the back of his shirt. He presents his bloody back to me, asking over his shoulder, 'Is it in me, is it in me?' Someone's legs sticking out from behind the far desk. Jed is kneeling, holding the someone's hand, tears in his eyes.” 

“Who’s the other one?” Hansen asked. It was Warhol, who had been shot with a 32-caliber pistol at close range, by Valerie Solanas, who Malanga and Hansen had missed by a matter of minutes. 

Earlier in the year, Solanas was attempting to have her book SCUM Manifesto published, and her script Up Your Ass produced. She presented the latter to Warhol to read, who feared it was entrapment: 

"In fact, when we'd gone to Cannes with Chelsea Girls the year before and I'd given that interview to Cahiers du Cinéma, it was Valerie Solanis [sic] I was referring to when I said, "People try to trap us sometimes. A girl called up and offered me a film script . . . and I thought the title was so wonderful, and I'm generally so friendly that I invited her to come over with it, but it was so dirty I think she must have been a lady cop. . . .”

Solanas returned to the Factory to retrieve the script, believing that Warhol was plotting with her publisher, Maurice Girodias, to prevent it from being published. Warhol had apparently misplaced it. 

Solanas was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced to three years in prison.

This boxed work (the 110th edition by Armin Hundertmark) was published a few months before Warhol died in February of 1987. It features an original ballpoint pen drawings, handwritten text, three photocopies of watercolors and a watercolor title page, housed in a paperboard box. 

Joe Jones | Solar Music No. 8-9

Joe Jones

Solar Music No. 8-9

Cologne, Germany: Edition Hundertmark, 1983

12.5 × 10.5 × 3.5 cm.

Edition of 10 signed and numbered copies

The 90th publication by the legendary Armin Hundertmark is a wooden box housing a colour photograph, an audio cassette, and a photo album with six colour photographs and eleven text pages. The wooden box and the photo album are held together in a slipcase.

Exceedingly rare, the publisher has one example available for1800 Euro, here. 

Ben Vautier | ART-ABC

Ben Vautier

ART-ABC

Cologne, Germany: Edition Hundertmark, 1984

30 x 22 x 2 cm.

Edition of 20 signed and numbered copies

The 86th boxed work by Edition Hundertmark consists of a black metal plate, at least 26 white magnetic letters (some boxes contained over 50) and a sheet with possible examples.  

“With this edition you can have a new Ben everyday”. 

Available from the publisher, here, for 1800 Euro.

Henri Chopin | Portrait of Franco

Henri Chopin

Portrait of Franco

Berlin/Koln, Germany: Edition Hundertmark, 1975

9.5 x 7 x 2.4 cm.

Edition of 6 signed and dated copies

A spiky leaf encased in acrylic, and publication announcement (below). Signed and dated by the artist in black ink on label affixed to end of block. The Getty Library has copy 1/6, donated as part of the Jean Brown collection. 

Available from the publisher for 450 Euros, here. 

Henri Chopin was born on this day, in Paris, in 1922.