Typewriters

After thirty entries I’m going to put the typewriter posts to bed, not because I’ve exhausted them, but them me. 

Peter Happel Christian and Phillip Andrew Lewis | AA4

Peter Happel Christian and Phillip Andrew Lewis

AA4

Pittsburgh, USA: Clear as Day, 2019

12” vinyl record in cloth gatefold sleeve

Edition size unknown

In high school, a history teacher casually asked the class what instrument best replicated the human voice. A classmate ventured a guess: “The piano?”. “No,” the teacher replied, "the piano is the alphabet. The instrument that most resembles the human voice is the violin.” I can’t recall what point he was making about the violin, but the idea of the piano as the alphabet of music always stayed with me. I later learned that an early typewriter prototype from 1868 employed eleven piano keys [see below]. 

Renowned photographer Ansel Adams once aspired to be a pianist. His piano studies were central to his education, practicing for hours and hours, daily. During his teenage years at Yosemite National Park, Adams began writing letters to friends, family, other photographers, environmentalists, and politicians. Writing by hand was laborious and his penmanship difficult to read, so he quickly acquired a typewriter. 

According to biographer Andrea G. Stillman, Adams traveled with a portable model so that he could "correspond no matter where he might be: at his studios in San Francisco, Yosemite, or Carmel; in cities like New York, Chicago, or Washington; in remote spots like Whites’ Cabins outside Carlsbad, New Mexico, or on board a train in Wyoming or ship to Hawaii; or in any one of more than a dozen national parks as far apart as Maine and Alaska.”

The Centre for Creative Photography in Arizona- which Adams co-founded in 1975 - displays his “cute blue” field typewriter, which he reportedly took on all of his photoshoots. Tucked into the folder of the portable cover is a sheet of the artist's letterhead, onto which he has typed "I love this typewriter". 

The origin of Peter Happel Christian and Phillip Andrew Lewis’ beautifully produced AA4 is a found audio recording of a letter typed by Adams on the last day of the 1960s, the contents of which are unknown. 

An audio recording of typewriting by a photographer somehow evokes synesthesias while feeling rich in metaphor, even as one struggles to decode it. I can clearly conjure the thrill of their initial discovery. 

Happel Christian and Lewis promptly had the recording notated into sheet music - a score that features three different time signatures (Common, Waltz, and 5/4), three different tempos (52 bpm, 110, and 92) as well as a long pause. The pitches are at the discretion of the performer. 

They then commissioned artists and musicians (Lenka Clayton, Chris Duncan, Barbara Held, Michael Masaru Flora, Jonathan Kaiser, Tiffany Ng, Steve Roden, Greg Pond & Cesar Léal) to execute interpretations of this score.

The album opens with the sounds of Lenka Clayton (romantic and professional partner to Phillip) creating one of her brilliant typewriter drawings, a reproduction of which is included in the handsome portfolio. It also includes the original score, and a fold out essay by curator and critic Godfre Leung.

Lewis and Clayton are featured in an episode of Art21 which debuted this month. 

Garry Neill Kennedy | E

Garry Neill Kennedy

E

Halifax, Canada: self-published, 2012

[unpaginated], 27 x 21.2 cm., softcover

Edition of 12 signed and numbered copies

For his June to July, 1980 exhibition at Eye Level Gallery in Halifax, Garry Kennedy modified the gallery's IBM electric typewriter by removing the bottom of its lower case “e”. Over the course of the show, all the correspondence sent by gallery staff was copied and placed in the exhibition space. 

It’s possible that the choice of the letter ‘e’ is a reference to American poet e.e. cummings, or to French author Georges Perec, who famously wrote the 300-page novel La disparition (1969) using only words that did not contain the letter ‘e’. 

The work predates Kennedy’s later interventions - such as CORRECTIONS (Anna Leonowens Gallery, 2012) and HORIZONS (Vancouver Art Gallery, 1980/2024) - and seemingly straddles Concrete Poetry and Institutional Critique. I’m reminded of the Michael Fernandez rubber stamp “The roll of the artist run centre is to bring down the government”, which went out on every letter from Struts for a month, presumably including their communication with the government agencies that funded them [see below]. 

*Printed Matter lists the date as 2012 and Eye Level Gallery as the publisher. Peter Trepanier’s comprehensive book Garry Neill Kennedy Printed Matter 1971 - 2009 lists the work as self-published, and from 2006. However, Trepanier’s book doesn’t extend to 2012, so I’ll leave the date as 2012. However,  Eye Level makes no reference to the publication on their site so I’m going to assume that it was self-published also. 

 

Sara MacKillop | Book Cover

Sara MacKillop

Book Cover

London, UK: Blue Feint, 2009

13 x 20 x 0.1 cm., softcover

Edition of 150

A mysterious title that purports to be a facsimile reprint of something published by the BBC decades ago. The only information I can find is on the verso: 

"The material on which this book is based was compiled and edited by Norman Longmate, who before joining the staff of the BBC as a radio producer in school broadcasting was himself a freelance scriptwriter, contributing to both radio and television. He is now a member of the BBC Secretariat."

Book Cover is available from Art Metropole, here, for $7.50 CDN. 

Endre Tót: Gladness and Rain

[Endre Tót]

Endre Tót: Gladness and Rain

New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 2023

24 pp., 38 x 24 cm., softcover

Edition of 200

Two of the artist’s favourite concerns (the third being ‘zero’) are addressed in this publication: being glad [see earlier posts here and here] and typewriter rain [here]. 

The booklet was published on the occasion of the Printed Matter exhibition of the same name, which ran from September 9th to November 14th, 2021 [see below]. 

The risograph-printed and hand-stamped publication includes highlights from the show, an essay by Darling Green, and an interview with Tót, translated into English for the first time. It reproduces full size facsimiles of many of Tót’s printed, typed, stamped, and mailed works from the 1970s and 80s.

Ken Nicol | XXX

Ken Nicol

XXX
Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2012
32 x 6.5 x 6.5

Edition of 30, each unique

Never made available for sale, this multiple served as the Nothing Else Press Christmas card that year, sent to friends and clients. It consists of a 750 ml bottle of red wine, with labels designed and hand-typed by the artist. I now wish we kept more than one for ourselves. 

Toy Typewriters

Off topic, but on theme: vintage toy typewriters we spotted the other day while visiting an antique store en route to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Already regretting not getting one.