Untitled - Giorgio Maffei

“nothing is harder to describe than the void”. Stefan Zweig
In the historical development of Western philosophical thought there is a concept
that has been mostly removed, omitted or even denied: the void, the nothingness.
This small and a little ironic incursion on the subject, between art and bibliophilism, tries without excessive
ambitions of completeness to restore the importance of nothingness (and also of the emptiness,
the immaterial, and the silence) that often arises with extraordinary power - embracing cosmology
and religion, literature and mathematics, physics and science - posing as an alternative to being.
The artists (Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana...) have filled it with materials that are sometimes invisible,
with colour/non-colour, while the experimental poets (Gappmayr, Lora Totino...) with atoms of language, the
musicians (John Cage, La Monte Young, Marclay...) with noise or rarefied sound, conceptual operators (Barry,
Art & Language...) thought the immaterial thought, the philosophers - with free thinking (Leibniz, Heidegger...),
the art critics (Roland Barthes...) with theoretical structure.
Bibliophiles and booksellers like us have little left to do, apart from approach the subject from the outward form
admitting our incompetence to touch the inner content. Here, however, paradoxically, materialises a catalogue
full of objects with particular physicality, even heated by joyful beauty.
Autori Vari
Art by Telephone
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1969
Record / Opera LP 33’’
Some artists: Arman, John Baldessari, Mel
Bochner, George Brecht, James Lee Byars,
Jan Dibbets, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton,
Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris,
Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis
Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson,
Wolf Vostell
Examples of the emerging Conceptual and
Minimal art are summoned for an exhibition at
the museum. Their presence is not requested
along with the works. They just have to dictate
over the phone the verbal description of their
work. The project was abandoned for reasons
of technical difficulty, and this record remains
the only memory of the event.” This is a
catalogue” reads a sentence on the border of
the album cover
€ 3.500,00
Atkinson Terry - Michael Baldwin
Declaration Propositions
Atkinson / Baldwin,1967
Artists’ Book
Cm 30x21x1
Some stains inside
The work for Art & Language is not determined
by its materiality or by its visible exterior, but
only by its ability to be designed and coded
€ 1.800,00
Robert Barry
(Untitled)
Sperone editore, Torino, 1970
Artists’ Book
Cm 17x11,5x2. Very poor conditions
To start, the cover is white and silent. To
continue, each page is crossed by very short
sentences. A couple of examples: “Le sue
origini sono indeterminate”, “Non è tangibile”,
“Non ha attributi durevoli”, “Può essere parte
di qualcos’altro”, etc. Bite-size concepts.
Untitled, naturally
€ 200,00
Robert Barry
For the exhibition the gallery
will be closed
Galleria Sperone, Torino, 1969
Artists’ Publication
Cm13x18
The exhibition has not been made (the gallery
was closed), even the catalogue (how would
you tell about something that does not exist?).
What remains are traces of the thought of the
artist, just cardboard invitation that shows only
itself
€ 500,00
Robert Barry
Inert Gas Series / Helium, Neon,
Argon, Krypton, Xenox / From a
Measured Volume to Indefinite
Expansion
Siegelaub, Hollywood, 1960
Poster / Opera
Cm 90x60, folded
A work of art, in the form of a folded poster,
which is the only evidence of Barry’s work
with Gas, by its nature invisible and intangible.
The poster is completely white, of course, just
bearing the title and the name at the bottom.
Siegelaub is the perfect accomplice to this
dematerialisation. The conceptual artist is
constantly in search of overcoming the limits of
the physical reality of an art object. Only ideas
become objects
€ 3.800,00
Robert Barry
Autobiography
Incertain Sens, 2006
Artists’ Book
Cm 22x22x2
The autobiography of Barry, almost a
transparent memory book by Piero Manzoni,
alternates almost invisible images of people
encountered with evocative words: Personal,
Impossible, Crucial, Alter, Beyond, Transcend,
etc. One way to tell their own life with the
minimum of expressiveness
€ 300,00
Elke Haarer
(Untitled)
Haarer Deggingen, 1997
Artists’ Book
Cm 15x10,5x1. N.600 ex.
A pair of colours is where the narrative of the
book has been placed. On the border of the
absurd story in pictures the colours interact
with each other, with the antecedents and
subsequent ones. Nothing eventful
€ 150,00
Mirella Bentivoglio
The book
Bentivoglio, Roma, 1979
Object Book
Cm 26x14x0,5. Unique signed and dated
exemplar
In search of the perfect archetype of a bookobject, Bentivoglio, who is constantly busy with
artist’s books, finds here the perfect synthesis
of form. The image in photocopy of the cover is
tautologically the book itself. A sheet folded and
stapled becomes both a container and content
of the work reduced only to its simulacrum
€ 400,00
Mariella Bettineschi
(Untitled)
Bettineschi, 1972
Artists’ Book
Cm 14,5x10,5x0,5. Signed
Still searching for the immaterial. Pages of
transparent paper that reveal the emptiness of
the following pages. Just a shaping to mark the
presence of a beginning and an end
€ 200,00
Manuela Bertoli
Infinito
Bertoli, Milano, 2006
Object Book
Cm 21x14x3. N.30 ex. numbered and signed
The pages take shape; the surface is populated
by satellites. The book becomes a fragment
of an infinite potential in the process of taking
form
SOLD
Roberto Bernasconi
Silenzio
E Se Poi edizioni, Osnago, 2011
Artists’ Book
Cm 18x13x05
Publisher Folder
N.55 ex. numbered and signed
“The Silence,” says Bernasconi - “Is also a
noise. The blank page is already a drawing”.
The matter, stubbornly, seems opposed to
absolute nothingness
€ 200,00
Blank Irma
Blank Book
Colpo di fulmine, Milano, 1995
Artists’ Book with original case
Cm 15x10,5x1.
N.99 ex. numbered and signed
The book is white, of course. Although the pages
are numbered and the cover bears fragments
of artist’s fingerprints. As an inevitable passage
of the author. Blank accepts, with smug irony,
the impossibility of the inexistent
€ 300,00
James Lee Byars
James Lee Byars
Stadtisches Museum, Monchengladbach,
1977
Multiple
Cm 20x16x7. N.330 ex. numbered
The golden cointainer is filled with a ball of
black tissue-paper that saturates the whole
space. The opera is both container and content
€ 1.800,00
John Cage
4’ 33’’
Edition Peters, New York
Score / Artists’ Publication
Cm 31x23
A historical score on which everything has
been said. Here is best, modestly, silenced
SOLD
Nanni Cortassa
Creasings (notes about)
Geiger, 1975
Artists’ Book
Cm 19,5x24x1.
N.70 ex. signed and numbered
Dedication by the artist
Cortassa handles the pages with nothing
inscribed. Only folds, shufflings, pinchings,
cuts, overlaps. Mute book that tells of the
bodily participation during its realization
€ 200,00
Mario Diacono
Libro Nero della Guardia Rossa
Libro Rosso della Guardia Nera
JCT, 1972 N.2 volumes.
Artists’ Books
Cm 21x13,5 x1,5. N. 100 ex. numbered
“Each volume, ”Deacon says -”Tells its own
colour”. Each colour, you can add, tells its
own volume. With the symbols, myths, rituals,
that the colour evokes, entrusted to its mere
presence and its only title
Both: € 400,00
Heinz Gappmayr
Colors
Aachen Munchen, Ottenhausen, 1983
Artists’ Book
Cm 29,5x23,5x0,5
Colours can be represented by their very
being, or by their textual definition. Gappmayr
compiled a book in which the two views are
declined between pages. Nothing else is
needed for a book of extraordinary formal
grace
€ 400,00
Koo Jeong-a
Frozen with a smile
CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, 2003
Artists’ Book
Cm 22x15x1
A block of pink pages glued together. Frozen
with a smile
€ 80,00
Heinz Gappmayr
Raum
Edition UND, Munchen, 1977
Artists’ Book
Cm 24x23,5x1
Completely blank pages, nothing more to say.
A space (Raum) that may be completed by the
reader
€ 120,00
Keith Godard
Sounds
Works, New York / Los Angeles, 1972
Artists’ Book
Cm 20x20x0,5. Signed exemplar with signed
letter
This book has no words or images, as the title
suggests it is a book of sounds and noises.
Turning or shaking the pages, tells the author,
you understand the meaning and you can
hear the sounds
€ 300,00
Jarl Hammarberg-Akesson
Poemoj sen vortoj
Poems without words
Inferi - Eget Forlag, Stockholm, 1971
Artists’ Book
Cm 30x21x0,5
A poetry book in Esperanto, politically free
speech says the artist. Then his texts deny
further, not only by the unknown language,
but also by the subtraction of words. There
are only signs, parentheses, some number,
punctuation, accents, exclamation points.
Having lost the substance, what remains is
grace
€ 200,00
Christian Marclay
Graffiti Composition
Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, 1996
Poster / opera
Cm 58x42
A star of contemporary art, highly involved
with the musical fact, engages with the idea
of ​​
“the void”. Decades after the “Silence”by
John Cage, Marclay left blank the musical
score. He does not intend to sing the silence,
only to leave open the theoretical possibility of
infinite sounds. After the “void” even the infinite
possibilities of “too much” produce silence
€ 150,00
Kim Soo Ja
A Needle Woman
CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, 2000
Artists’ Book
Cm 21x15x1
Almost nothing happens in the film narrative
of the Korean video artist. Almost nothing
happens in the book consisting of intangible
pages. Soo Ja does not propose visual or
textual narratives and does not seeking
meanings
€ 150,00
Yves Klein
Dimanche. Le Journal d’un seul
jour
Klein, Paris, 1960
Artists’ Book
Cm 57x38x0,5
“Theatre du Vide”,”Un Homme dans l’Espace!”,
“Saut dans le Vide”. The texts by Klein on
the subject of the void come together in this
historic publication precariously distributed for
one day only (Sunday, November 27, 1960) on
newsstands of Paris. Printed and distributed
by the artist himself, it is the truest document
representing Klein’s relentless pursuit of
the Immaterial. The cover photograph of the
legendary “Leap into the Void” stills leaves
uncertain the line between the truth of
artistic performance and photographic fiction.
The King of Heaven, the Messenger of the
Intangible rises toward the blue, over the
rooftops of Paris
SOLD
Yves Klein
Concert of Vacuum
Prince of Space
Tanz der Leere
Sight & Sound Production
London / Dusseldorf, 1965
LP Record 33’’ Directed by Charles Wilp
Klein’s disc contains no music, but it is engraved
with the “Music of the Void”. With discomfort or
curiosity, we listen to the only sound produced
from turntable stylus running around the disc.
The music now corresponds to monochrome
painting and especially to ”Le Vide” which
Klein exhibited in the historic exhibition in Paris
at the Galerie Iris Klert in 1958
€ 1.800,00
George Maciunas
Flux Paper Events
Edition Hundertmark, Berlin, 1976
Artists’ Book
Cm 21x15x05. N.500 ex. First Edition
Thirty-two pages without text and images
containing only “memoirs” of destructive
small actions done to the pages themselves.
Holes, cuts, tears, stains, stains ... The most
representative of the manipulated Fluxus
books (though not the first), the emblem of a
generation of publications in search of a-textual
archetype of the book that turns into an object
€ 400,00
Martin Maloney
Reject objects
Paul Maenz, Koln, 1971
Artists’ Book
Cm 15x10,5x0,5
A boundary between waste and recovery,
Maloney’s phrases evoke thoughts and objects
thrown out or never existent
€ 200,00
Piero Manzoni
Piero Manzoni. Life and work
Verlag Petersen Press, Berlin, 1969
Artists’ Book
Cm 17,5x13,5
Conceived by Manzoni before his death in
1963, the biography (life and work) is narrated
by evocations, suggested by the mere
thought of the reader himself. The process of
dematerialisation of the art takes shape also in
book form, consistent with all his work. Artist’s
intervention becomes more and more limited
to a mental mechanism of choice and design
of work to be carried out with a lack of interest,
manifested more and more, for traditional
forms. This process is particularly evident in
the history of the book of which we speak.
Manzoni ago put the name of Petersen, instead
of his, in the usual position of the author’s
name on the cover of the book, thus delegating
to the other person the creative act, changing
the ‘legal order’ established in ‘ art. The work
“is” by Manzoni, and this is confirmed by the
writings also reproduced here, but it is signed
by a different author. The author becomes a
subject, the creator/publisher becomes the
author. This dance that mixes the traditional
roles will find wide emphasis in the conceptual
art that begins from Manzoni and runs for the
next two decades
SOLD
Bruno Munari
L’idea è nel filo
Giovanni Bassetti
Stampa Officina Lucini, Milano, 1964
Artists’ Book
Cm 16,5x16,5x1
A work created as a promotional item for
industry is transformed in the hands of Munari
into a masterpiece of dazzling whiteness. A
white thread runs through the white pages. A
printed phrase moves along with each turn of
the pages. “The idea is not in the matter,” says
Munari - “it is in the wire”
€ 4.500,00
Maurizio Nannucci
9 colours
Centro Di Firenze, 1970
Artists’ Book
Cm 15x15x1. N.300 ex.
Each image of the printed book brings a
colourful word. Every word defines a colour
and that colour is printed. The book unfolds
within itself, its shape and its tautology
€ 300,00
Maurizio Nannucci
Provvisorio & definitivo
Exit, Lugo, 1983
Artists’ Book
Cm 20,5x14,5x0,5. N.250 ex.
A dictionary of universal “languages”, ancient,
extinct, hidden, incomprehensible. Nannucci
is working on unfamiliar territory on the border
precisely provisional and definitive. Verging in
this way, and deliberately, nothing intelligible
€ 250,00
Piero Rambaudi
Progetti di pitture
Centro Piemontese, Torino, 1969
Artists’ Book
Cm 30x25x1,5
Signs and colours. Ingredients of a painting,
put on the page by mathematician Rambaudi,
without painting. Only numbers and letters.
Announced on the cover, an essay by Angelo
Dragone, but this is ... not there either. Is it just
a project?
€ 300,00
Gian Paolo Roffi
Silentium / Vox
Roffi, 1997
Object Book
Cm 23x17. Unique signed exemplar
The sculpture evokes the sound of silence,
now a classic of the twentieth century. The
object promises dense visual content
€ 100,00
Ettore Spalletti
(Senza Titolo)
Vistamare, Benedetta Spalletti, Pescara, 2004
Artists’ Book / Multiple
Cm 16,5x11,5x3. N.200 ex.
The elegance of the container, a box well
packaged, is confirmed by the ethereal content
consisting of impalpable sheets of slightly grey
tissue. The first of these is barely marked by
five drops of pure gold. Gold, says Klein, is the
colour of the Absolute
€ 2.200,00
Ettore Spalletti
Kleve 2009
Vistamare, Benedetta Spalletti, Pescara, 2009
Artists’ Book
Cm 21x15x3,5. N. 100 ex. Thousands of pages, uncountable, of
impalpable blue tissue paper, are a compact
sculptural volume, similar in shape and
meaning to the work of the artist. But the
enormous possibilities of the variation of
opening the pages broad possibilities for
viewing the object
€ 480,00
Ettore Spalletti
Ettore Spalletti
Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli 2004
Artists’ Book / Multiple
Cm 31x22x2. N.300 ex.
Again blue tissues, enclosing a cardboard
printed with the words: “Form does not differ
from emptiness; emptiness does not differ
from form. Form is precisely the emptiness;
emptiness is precisely the form.”
€ 700,00
Franco Vaccari
La scultura buia
Centro Documentazione Visiva
Piacenza, 1968
Artists’ Book
Cm 23,5x23,5,0,5
Thus the booklet ”Scultura Buia”, from ‘68,
concomitant with an homonymous installation
staged in Piacenza, is not limited to being a
mere catalogue of the exhibition, to tell another
event, but it becomes an event in itself . It is a
place that you enter, you cross an alienating
dimension, and from which, in the end, you
comes out; exactly as in the other event, and
even in a completely different way
ON REQUEST
Jirì Valoch
Book about nothing
Valoch, 1970
Artists’ Book
N.12 ex. signed and numbered
The entirely white pages of this elegant book
by Valoch are only crossed by the printed title,
carved in silver. The fulminant phrase gives
the book and is borrowed for this exhibition
€ 1.200,00
Jirì Valoch
Permanent
Valoch, 1968-1970
Typewritten unique exemplar
A small square sheet (another archetype) with
a mysterious typescript (./.) contained in a
gently folded cover bearing the name, title and
year. Everything you need, anyway. We do not
know the reason for the double date. A long
gestation time?
€150,00
Eric Watier
Un livre. Un pli - A ta mort, tu n’emporteras que ce que tu as donné
- Bonnet blanc - Ma maison est ta
maison
Incertain Sens, Rennes, 2003
N. 4 volumes. Artists’ Books
Cm 19x13,5x0,5
Each volume is composed of a sheet folded
with one of the phrases printed. Sometimes an
image inside or another sentence. Eric Watier,
a juggler, is hovering in the balance between
little and nothing
All four volumes: € 300,00
William Xerra
Non Rifilato
Xerra, Piacenza, 1972
Artsts’ Book
Cm 17x12x5.
N.3 volumes in original case
N.10 ex. signed and numbered by the artist
Books that herald in their package exterior,
elegantly traditional, a large density of
image and thought. Belied, on the inside, by
completely white even trimmed squares. As
the title says. Volume I, II, III Anthology of a
general void
€ 500,00