The Matrix Poems: 1960-1970
Norman H. Pritchard
Published by Primary Information, New York & Ugly Duckling Presse, New York, 2021, 224 pages, 10 × 18 cm, English
Price: €18 (Temporarily out of stock)

The Matrix by Norman H. Pritchard (1939–1996) gathers a selection of the Concrete and Black Arts poet’s work from 1960 to 1970. The seventy-one poems collected here might be regarded, as Charles Bernstein has written, as “sound” poems, being tethered not only to the literature of the Black Arts Movement but also to jazz culture and urban life in New York. Drawing as much from the visual arts and concrete poetry as from sound-based experimentation and music, Pritchard utilized the simple tools of spacing and typography to create syncopations, vibrations, and musical rhythms. What emerges is nothing less than a self-contained system of mimetic codes that challenge modernist modes of perception and representation. Formally innovative and anticipating what Michael Riffaterre would come to call the semiotics of “ungrammaticalities,” the book is a syntactical and visual experience in repetition, stutters, and structure.

#2021 #concretepoetry #normanhpritchard #poetry #primaryinformation #uglyducklingpresse
Frederick Wiseman
Published by Monarch Press, New York, 1975, 134 pages (b/w ill.), 16 × 23 cm, English
Price: €17

The films of Frederick Wiseman, unparalleled as social and artistic documents of U.S. institutional life, have earned him international acclaim and generated continued controversy. His career and remarkable series of documentaries, beginning with the now famous Titicut Follies to later work Juvenile Court, Primate and Welfare, are covered in this collection of critical essays, interviews, reviews, complete filmography and a selective bibliography.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

#1975 #film #frederickwiseman
a letter to danila
Domenico de Clario
Published by Sonntag Press, Melbourne, 2021, 32 pages (b/w ill.), 14.8 × 21 cm, English
Price: €12

A Letter to Danila: What You Hoped For Through Your Lifetime pays homage to the life and work of Russian born painter and sculptor, Danila Vassilieff. Vassilieff is credited with exposing Australian modernism to the figurative traditions associated with Russian decorative and folk art, influencing an entire generation of unapologetic young artists including Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, and Sidney Nolan.

Domenico de Clario first encountered Vassilieff’s work as a teenager, when he stumbled across an old catalogue on the shelves of his high school library. Leafing through black and white reproductions of Vassilieff’s inner city neighbourhoods summoned memories and sensations of arriving with his own family from Trieste, Italy.

#2021 #domenicodeclario #sonntagpress
Art of The Eighties and Seventies
Michael Stevenson
Published by Revolver Publishing, Berlin, 2006, 96 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 24 × 32 cm, English / German
Price: €28

Produced on the occasion of Michael Stevenson’s 2006 exhibition, Art of the Eighties and Seventies at the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, referencing both Hans Hollein’s postmodern design of the museum and the 1978 Tehran gallery exhibition ‘Gold Bricks’, on short display during the outbreak of the revolution – a sculptural work by Armenian artist Zadik Zadikian which disappeared without a trace through looting. This exhibition was the first and only show of a gallery that Toni Shafrazi, who later became successful in New York, opened in Tehran in 1978.

#2006 #michaelstevenson #museumabteiberg #revolverpublishing
22 Jonge Zwitsers
Published by Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1968, 54 pages (b/w ill.), 20.3 × 27.5 cm, Dutch
Price: €12

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition 22 Jonge Zwitsers at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 28 March–5 May, 1969.

SM Cat. No 458.

Designed by Wim Crouwel.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

#1969 #stedelijkmuseum #wimcrouwel
The Sculptors
Gilbert & George
Published by Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, 1981, 32 pages (b/w ill.), 15 × 21 cm, German
Price: €24

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Gilbert & George: Photo Pieces: 1971–1980 at the Kunsthalle Bern, 7 March–5 April, 1981.

#1981 #gilbertampgeorge #kunsthallebern