The Weight of the Concrete explores the legacy of the Turinese artist and publisher Ezio Gribaudo (1929–2022), examining his multifaceted oeuvre at the confluence of image and language. This publication, named after I Peso del Concreto (1968)-a seminal work that featured Gribaudo’s early graphic creations alongside an anthology of concrete poetry edited by the poet Adriano Spatola (1941–88) places Gribaudo’s work in conversation with approximately forty artists and poets from different generations, all of whom similarly engage with explorations of text, form, and visual expression. With contributions from Anni Albers, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Irma Blank, Al Cartio, Paula Claire, CAConrad, Natalie Czech, Betty Danon, Constance DeJong, Mirtha Dermisache, Johanna Drucker, Bryana Fritz, Ilse Garnier, Liliane Giraudon, Susan Howe, Alison Knowles, Katalin Ladik, Liliane Lin, Hanne Lippard, Sara Magenheimer, Françoise Maircy, Nadia Marcus, Giulia Niccolai, Alice Notley, Ewa Partum, sadé powell, N. H. Pritchard, Cia Rinne, Neide Dias de Sá, Giovanna Sandri, Mary Ellen Solt, Alice Theobald, Colleen Thibaudeau, Patrizia Vicinelli, Pascal Vonlanthen, Hannah Weiner and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt.

Edited by Tom Engels and Lilou Vidal. Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Ezio Gribaudo – The Weight of the Concrete, held at Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, 18 September, 2023–2 February, 2024, and Museion-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen, 23 March–1 September, 2024.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition The Weight of the Concrete by Ezio Gribaudo with a scenography by Davide Stucchi. It contains photographic excerpts from Ezio Gribaudo’s series of achromatic embossed “Logogriff” limited edition books, created between 1965 and 1972. These works challenge the conventional relationship between ink and material in print, using embossing to highlight the tangible process of creating printed matter. One of the key elements of Gribaudo’s work is the “logogrifo” (logogriph), a word puzzle derived from the Greek “logos” (word) and “griphos” (riddle). Typically, the logogriph, or a riddle in verse, involves altering words by adding, removing, or changing one letter at a time to form other words. In Gribaudo’s interpretation, a logogrifo oscillates between legibility and abstraction, serving both as readable forms and as a gateway to an enigmatic world where the image and language, disconnected from their origins, coalesce.

Edited by Tom Engels and Lilou Vidal. Designed by Julie Peeters.

“Inspired by logogriphs, riddle games consisting of forming a variety of words through combination and permutation of the letters of an initial word, Ezio Gribaudo’s Logogrifi belong to an equivocal, non-verbal realm, short-circuiting the image in its historical linearity. A repertoire of mnemonic white forms, sometimes textual, sometimes figurative, or topographic (even orographic), reveal the memory and the gravity of an enigmatic world.” From the press release of Ezio Gribaudo, Dizionario delle forme at Sans titre, Paris, France, 2016.

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