Philip Corner | The Identical Lunch

Philip Corner
The Identical Lunch
Barton, USA: Nova Broadcast Press, 1973
46 pp., 22.4 x 15.3 cm., softcover
Edition of 1000 copies

In the late sixties, Philip Corner noticed his friend Alison Knowles ate the same lunch every day: “a tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast with butter and lettuce, no mayo, and a cup of soup or glass of buttermilk", leading the artist to turn her dining habits into a performance. She did this by inviting friends to join her at a local diner, to experience the same lunch as her, and to write about their experiences.

In 1971, Nova Broadcast Press released Knowles' account of the shared lunches as Journal of the Identical Lunch. The next title in the series (which had previously included books by William S Burroughs, Wolf Vostell and Dick Higgins - Knowles' husband at the time) is Corner's own take on the lunch, using Knowles' original piece as a 'score'.

It would be the last in the Nova Broadcast series.

Bruno Munari

Bruno Munari died 19 years ago today, at the age of 90.

Olaf Nicolai | La Luna / Der Mond

Olaf Nicolai
La Luna / Der Mond (Monaco / München, 28.01.2013, 08.01 pm - 08.08 pm)

Brussels, Belgium: MOREpublishers, 2017

23 x 32 cm.
Edition of 24 signed and numbered copies [+ 12 AP]

The 97th project issued in the Morepublishers' hors série is a sheet of analogue negatives (illford, 3600 ISO, 36 frames) and a C-print. Each print is unique and the buyer receives the other images in the edition via the sheet of negatives.

La Luna / Der Mond is available from the publisher for 350 €. Contact them at info@morepublishers.be for more information.

WHAT DID YOU BRING?

John Cage, Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles
WHAT DID YOU BRING?
Chicago, USA: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1967
[unpaginated], 10 x 6.5 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

A program booklet for an evening of Happenings staged at Second City, Chicago, October 23, 1967, which features scores and program notes for Cage's Variations VIII, Knowles' String Piece and Bean Roll Readings; Ben Vautier's Apple and other events. Higgins provided the program notes and design.

Henri Chopin | Le Dernier Roman Du Monde

Henri Chopin
Le Dernier Roman Du Monde
Paris, France: Edition Cyanuur, 1970
[unpaginated], 20.5 x 20.5 cm., w/ 45 rpm record
Edition of 1150 numbered copies


Artist book with 7" single containing the 1957 audio poem "Peche de nuit", which can be heard on Youtube, here. An additional deluxe version of fifty signed and numbered copies contained three silkscreen prints by Raoul Haussman and a silkscreen print by Bertini.

Rodney Graham | Awakening Cross

Rodney Graham
Awakening Cross, 2006
Silver, cord
10.8 × 6.4 × 0.6 cm
Edition of 12

Claude Closky | Votre Beauté

Claude Closky
Votre Beauté
Paris, France: Self-published, 1995
24 pp., 9,5 x 14,5 cm., softcover
Edition size unknown

An early artist book by Closky whose title translates to "Your Beauty".

Fluxattitudes

[Fluxus]
Fluxattitudes
Ghent, Belgium/Buffalo, USA/New York City, USA: Imschoot/Hallwalls/New Museum, 1991
62 pp., 62, 22.9 x 15.3 cm., softcover
Edition size unknown

Edited by Cornelia Lauf and Susan Hapgood and designed by Nancy Dwyer, for the exhibition that ran from February 23rd to March 27th, 1991, at Hallwalls and then travelled to the next year to The New Museum in New York from May 10th to August 16th.

The title includes texts by Lauf, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Susan Hapgood, Bruce Altshuler, Kristine Stiles, Tod Lippy, Douglas Kahn, Ted Byfield, and Owen Smith. Exhibited artists included Eric Andersen, Ay-O, Guillaume Bijl, George Brecht, Giuseppe Chiari, Philip Corner, Meg Cranston, Nancy Dwyer, Brian Eno, Robert Filliou, Henry Flynt, Ken Friedman, Group Material, Al Hansen, Sohei Hashimoto, Geoff Hendricks, Hi Red Center, Dick Higgins, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Joe Jones, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, Zini Lardieri, Liz Larner, György Ligeti, Jackson Mac Low, George Maciunas, Christian Marclay, Jackie McAllister, Jill McArthur, Larry Miller, Peter Moore, Cady Noland, Yoko Ono, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Takako Saito, Peter Schmidt, Thomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Paul Sharits, Chieko Shiomi, Daniel Spoerri, Laura Stein, James Tenney, Tiravanija, Yasunao Tone, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Yoshimasa Wada, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, and La Monte Young.

“FluxAttitudes explored the tenets and significant influence of the Fluxus movement. The conceptually based works included performance, music, mail art, film, and audience participation projects, many responding to the dominant themes of the 1992 Presidential election.”

-From The New Museum Annual Report, 1992-1994

Laurie Anderson: Works from 1969 to 1983

[Laurie Anderson]
Laurie Anderson: Works from 1969 to 1983
Philadelphia, USA: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1983
95 pp., 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7", softcover
Edition size unknown

An early monograph on Anderson's work, from the exhibition of the same name which ran from October 14th to December 4th at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.
The exhibition later traveled to the Frederick S. Wright Gallery at UCLA, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, and the Queens Museum in New York.

The title includes four essays, a chronology of Anderson's work, catalogue of works, and bibliography.

Available one ABE books for between twelve and, ah, thirteen-hundred and twelve dollars. See below.

To Steve McCaffery from Dick Higgins

A February 1977 postcard from Dick Higgins to Steve McCaffery, from the Granary Books Steve McCaffery Archive.

The card reads:

"Dear Steve -

Karl Young wants to look at the Filliou/bpN/SMcC/dh book when it's ready for his Membrane Press - okay?

Love to you and Maggie, & to bp,

Dick"

The book Higgins refers to is called Six Fillious, and is co-authored by Filliou, Higgins, McCaffery, bpNichol, George Brecht and Dieter Roth. See earlier post, here, for details.

To Steve McCaffery from bpNichol

From bpNichol to Steve McCaffery, April 27, 1977, from the Granary Books archive:

"From the hand of bpNichol, "his left hand knows what his right hand is doing"

Steve,

worth noting in regard to the CONTINUITY QUESTION is our long discussions about whether to put out an album (i.e. frozen state when what we deal with is shifting — our preference then for LIVE IN THE WEST as more obviously documentary of an occasion & time) & our ongoing discussion of electronic elements as it relates to this question of energy interface. i.e. its human energy not electric we’re dealing with[.]

bp”

To Steve McCaffery from Bob Cobbing

Bob Cobbing to Steve McCaffery, October 13, 1990, from the Granary Books archive:

“Unexpectedly printed your The Entrift for a Writers Forum launch last weekend...It makes a nice little book. I read it at the launch and it went down well with the audience. Because I did it in a hurry, I didn’t check for errors, apart from correcting the ones you already marked — there are a few, I think, so I’ll ask you to do a proof read and let me know what to correct, in time for the second edition. (I did only 60 copies of the first edition, and they'll soon go."

To Steve McCaffery from Dick Higgins

Dick Higgins to Steve McCaffery, April 17, 1976: 

“Dear Steve McCaffery, 

Curious as to what you do. I hear your name from people and places I respect - and would like to know the work. 

Separately, I'm sending some of my writings: hope you will enjoy them. If you could send me something of yours, I would be very interested. 

So few sound poets on this continent! I’m in touch with some of the European ones, but besides Nichol I don’t like any in North America. Seems to [sic] often to affect a false naivity [sic] (Bissett, Lurie, the Harlemans, etc.).

Seems I'll be teaching at Milwaukee next spring: will surely cover sound poetry. 

Very bests, 

Dick Higgins”

This letter seems like quintessential Dick Higgins: curious and candid (note the dig at Bill Bissett, who surely would've moved in the same circles as McCaffery at the time). I used to correspond with Higgins and he often offered blunt assessment of the work of his fellow Fluxus artists. The letters were all marked "not for publication" at the top and bottom of the page. 

For more correspondence with Steve McCaffery, visit the archive at Granary Books, here. 

To Steve McCaffery from Robert Filliou

 
A postcard from Robert Filliou dated September 2nd, 1978 that reads:

“Greetings from Iceland, Steve. Thank you for your last letter. Your definitions of FUTILITY & UTILITY show a way out of the dilemma of gay vs dismal science (utility & freedom, that’s poetical economy). As for the corkscrew I've taken, I'll use it to open new bottles, to drink the new wine therein. I do hope you'll be in Europe this spring....Unfortuntately I have no suggestions as to paid performances. I suppose that's why I've been teaching here for a month. Love RF."

Also above: a collage dating from the same time that features both Filliou and McCaffery, though it's unclear who produced it, or if it were made in collaboration.

For more examples, visit the Steve McCaffery archive at Granary Books, here.

Steve McCaffery Archive

Steve McCaffery is a Toronto poet and scholar, who taught at York University and currently holds the Gray Chair at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

Born in Sheffield, England on January 24th, 1947), McCaffery lived in the UK for most of his youth. After graduating from the University of Hull, he moved to Toronto in 1968, where he sought out fellow poet bpNichol. Together with Rafael Barreto-Rivera and Paul Dutton (now in CCMC with Michael Snow and John Oswald) they formed the influential sound poetry collective The Four Horsemen. Considered the country's first sound and performance poetry ensemble, the group released two 12" vinyl records, two cassettes, and three print collections. They remained active for almost twenty years, until Nichol's death in 1988.

McCaffery and Nichol also collaborated on the Toronto Research Group, a 1973 group which “critiqued established forms, values, and meanings via exuberant performances of fragmentation and dispersal; and they applied poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theory to poetics to expose underlying socio/cultural assumptions.” (Pauline Bunting and Susan Rudy).

He is the author of countless books and has twice been nominated for Canada’s Governor General’s Award.

The Steve McCaffery archive is offered for sale by Granary Books. It comprises over sixty boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, journals, sketchbooks, address books, flyers, lecture notes and audio and video tapes.

For more information, visit Granary Books, here. The five or six posts that follow will feature examples of postcards and letters sent to McCaffery from concrete poets, Fluxus artists and others.



"When I came from England the only poet that I really wanted to meet in Canada was bp Nichol, whose concrete poetry I’d become acquainted with through little magazines. When we first met we realized we had both been working in relative vacuums, and two people interested in the same thing naturally led to collaboration.

After the Four Horsemen formed in 1969, bp and I started the Toronto Research Group, dedicated to investigating alternative forms to the standard expository or critical essay.

Later came my correspondence with Dick Higgins, which led among other things to Six Fillious—a collaboration with Filliou himself, bp, Dick Higgins, George Brecht and Diter Rot (a predominantly Fluxus gathering of poet-artists).

Later followed the collaboration with Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Ray Di Palma, and Ron Silliman that resulted in Legend. All of these collaborations came out of pure chance (on my coming to Canada, on bp living in Toronto rather than say Vancouver, Dick Higgins contacting me by mail, etc.). Yet they were all informed by the common, fundamental desire to get away from that romantic ideologeme of the lyric self. The sheer energy of collaborative writing exceeds isolated subjectivity, for one is always in collision and in cooperation with another; the creative primal scene here is both community and alterity. It’s interesting that the collaboration with bp Nichol involved integral destructive elements, i.e. we would freely delete each other’s words and phrases substituting are own. (I talk about the dynamics of dictation and transcription that governed so much of the TRG collaboration in the Introduction to Rational Geomancy.) By contrast, the five-way collaboration on Legend was very structured and clean; it was based on discrete accretions with a high integrity placed on distinct contributions. When I started collaborating by deleting other people’s lines and phrases it created a certain amount of opposition."

-  Steve McCaffery, to Ryan Cox, 2007