Martin Kippenberger | Untouched & Unprinted Paper

Martin Kippenberger

Untouched & Unprinted Paper

New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 1990

24 x 15 x 5 cm., loose leaves in slipcase

Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies

A slipcased ream of pristine paper wrapped in kraft paper and sealed with brown paper tape (the removal of which results in the destruction of the artwork). The artist has neither printed on nor touched the stack.

Furthering the remove of the 'hand of the artist' - it's reported that Kippenberger also didn't even see the paper. The work's label on the front of the ream was signed by the artist and mailed to Printed Matter from California, where he was teaching.  When the publisher mailed Kippenberger his artist copies of the edition to the same address, they were somehow lost in transit.

A copy of the work appears in the collection of MoMA (top image), but otherwise has almost no online presence. The other images were taken at John Goodwin’s home in 2013. Goodwin was the director of Printed Matter at the time, and oversaw the production of the work. 

Doro Boehme and Eric Baskauskas | Various Blank Pages

Doro Boehme and Eric Baskauskas
Various Blank Pages
Chicago, USA: Self-published, 2009
[66] pp., 20.5 x 15 cm., softcover
Edition of 500

While working at the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at SAIC, Baskauskas and Boehme scanned the blank pages of Ed Ruscha's influential and oft-imitated artists' books, and collected them in this loving tribute, faithfully mimicking the now classic format.

Ian Wilson | Art and Project Bulletin 30

Ian Wilson
Art and Project Bulletin 30 
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Art & Project, 1970
[4] pp., 29.5 x 21 cm., folded single sheet
Edition of 800

The 30th issue (of 156, Wilson also did #59) of Art and Project, published in conjunction with an exhibition which opened on the 30th of November, 1970. The contents are blank.

Herman de Vries | wit weiss

Herman de Vries
wit weiss
Stuttgart, Germany: Edition Hansjörg Mayer, 1967
124 pp., 15.9 x 12 cm., softcover
Edition of 500 numbered copies.

Book with empty pages, including an introduction by J.C. Van Schagen, which is also blank.

Vincenzo Agnetti | Libro dimenticato a memoria

Piero Manzoni | Life and Works

Piero Manzoni
Life and Works
Berlin, Germany: Verlag Petersen Press, 1963
[60] pp., 18 x 15 cm., plastic clip binding
Edition of 100, signed and numbered (by Jes Petersen)

Other than the title page, an all-blank book. Conceived by Manzoni just before his death in February 1963, the book was published posthumously later that year. A second edition followed six years later. The work is often attributed to Petersen, as his name appears at the top (making the title appear as Piero Manzoni: Life and Works, which would suggest a work of criticism of biography), and his signature adorns the back, along the plastic clip. The Manzoni Archives list him as co-editor, which is pretty funny, given the lack of content. Reportedly, the idea to use translucent paper was his.

The book can be viewed electronically, here.

Aram Saroyan | Untitled

Aram Saroyan
Untitled
New York City, USA: Kulchur Press, 1968
[500] pp., 8.5 x 11 x 2", unbound
Edition of 1000

The third in Lita Hornick's Kulchur Press book series (which also included Screen Tests by Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga) was an unopened ream of paper, hand-stamped and sold as a book for $2.00. Conceived of as a "literary minimalist sculpture", the author (a poet previously published by Random House) considered it his "first real work".

As part of his payment, Saroyan was sent 10 copies and few others seemed to have survived. According to WorldCat, SUNY Buffalo and Columbia University are the only libraries to have the work in their collection. The publisher destroyed all but a few copies of the work, believing that the piece was part of a larger conspiracy to discredit her as a publisher and editor. Their distributor wouldn't carry it, so after selling twelve copies and storing two "for history", she threw "the wretched little thing" into the garbage. "I didn't even bother to save the paper for typing" she wrote in her 1989 memoir The Green Fuse.



"My initial idea for the book was that it should be entirely, wordlessly, red--red cover, back-cover, endpapers, and all pages, with a copyright notation the only printed content. When this proved technically impossible according to Lita's printer, we discussed alternatives and eventually arrived at the wrapped ream of typing paper, including a commercial label, with a copyright notice and the price--$2.00--stamped on the front."

- Aram Saroyan

Martin Kippenberger | Untouched & Unprinted Paper

Martin Kippenberger
Untouched & Unprinted Paper
New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 1990
24 x 15 x 5 cm., loose leaves in slipcase
Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies

A slipcased ream of pristine paper wrapped in kraft paper and sealed with brown paper tape (the removal of which results in the destruction of the artwork). The artist has neither printed on nor touched the stack.

Furthering the remove of the 'hand of the artist' - it's reported that Kippenberger also didn't even see the paper. The work's label on the front of the ream was signed by the artist and mailed to Printed Matter from California, where he was teaching.  When the publisher mailed Kippenberger his artist copies of the edition to the same address, they were somehow lost in transit.