Untitled - Giorgio Maffei

2
Giovanni Anselmo
116 Particolari visibili e
misurabili di Infinito
Torino, Sperone Editore, 1975
Brossura. Cm 29,5x20,5.
Very good condition
€ 1.300,00
A clear example of the idea of ​​a work
of art in book form which combines
elements of plastic physical presence
and poetic fascination. The work
begins with entirely black pages
that progressively become, first
partially and then completely, white.
The detail of the word INFINITE,
magnified beyond all limits of legibility,
drags the “reader” in an attempt to
define the concept expressed by
the term, putting into play visual and
speculative elements.
Bibliography:
Germano Celant
Offmedia
Bari, Dedalo Libri, 1977
Pag.184
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Esthétique du livre d’artiste
Paris, Bibiliothéque Nat. de France, 1997
Pag.253
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.94
Giorgio Maffei
Libri e documenti - Arte povera 1966-1980
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2007
Pag.42
3
Carel Balth
Perception of the line
Vreeland, Holland, Balth, 1975
N.500 ex. numbered (12/500)
Brossura. Cm 25x22,5.
Very good condition
€ 120,00
“Perception of the Line” has two
parallel lines on a page, one white
and the other black, alternately more
or less visible depending on the
background’s gradual change to white
or black. The first and last page the
white line coincides with the colour
of the background and disappears
leaving only the black one in sight,
it exists but it is not “perceived”.
Similarly, in the middle page the black
background allows the emergence of
the single white line: two eclipses that
chase each other endlessly in circles.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.39
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Esthétique du livre d’artiste
Paris, Bibiliothéque National de France 1997
Pag.252
Germano Celant
Offmedia
Bari, Dedalo Libri – 1977
Pag.184
4
Irma Blank
Exercitium
Milano, Bayer Italia, 1990
N. 1000 ex. Dedica con firma
dell’autrice al frontespizio
Brossura, Cm 24x32
Bruniture del tempo in copertina, per il
resto Very good condition
€ 150,00
The pictorial cycle of the Radical
Writings adopted, wrote Elena Tonelli,
an “incomprehensible language,
poised between the mechanical
nature of the gesture and the
individuality of the action that gives
way to the deepest sense: that of
existence.”
This artist’s book, transcribing the
Radical Writings’ painting project on
paper, contains nineteen “exercises”
of pictorial writing whereby the
repetition of the gesture has the lilting
rhythm of breath producing a silent
writing that resolves the relationship
between sign and time in perfect
harmony.
5
Daniel Buren
Indizi
Napoli, Electa. Incontri Internazionali
d’Arte, 1987
Brossura. 28x25. Very good condition
€ 80,00
In 1987 Daniel Buren’s “Work in situ”
was on exhibit at the Museum of
Capodimonte. The piece comprised
of panels in white and yellow vertical
strips with a central opening set
in front of the paintings by Vincent
Camuccini, so as to capture a few
details.
The same device was used for the
book published during the exhibit:
seven series of different colours
comprised of seven sheets with
precisely 8.7 cm vertical lines. The
seventh sheet of each set has a
square opening in the middle that
frames a particular pictorial work, part
of the collection or an architectural
detail of the museum itself.
The dialogue between the artist and
the urban environment persists even
in the pages of a book.
6
Antonio Calderara
56 pagine
Milano, Galleria Milano.
Stampa A. Lucini, 1973
Brossura. Cm 15x12
N.1500+99 ex. Esemplare con
serigrafia originale numerata (52/99) e
firmata dall’artista
Very good condition
€ 250,00
Calderara’s abstraction, clean and
simple, his elegant and controlled
lyricism are perfectly represented in
this little sophisticated book in size
and type of paper used, refined for the
choice of font and colour of the texts
that follow one another page after
page.
A small screen print accompanies
it: two light-coloured almost
imperceptible lines, go beyond
physical perception suggesting the
condition of transcendence.
Bibliography:
Presente nella collezione della Bibliothèque
Kandinsky - Centre Pompidou, Paris
7
Antonio Calderara
Misura di Luce. Il numero e
l’armonia
Milano, All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro.
Stampa A. Lucini, 1964
N. 500 ex. numerati (274/500).
Con n.9 serigrafie. Firma e data
autografa dell’artista. Cm 27,5x27,5.
Tavole sciolte con velina in custodia
editoriale. Scritti di Umberto Eco.Very
good condition
€ 950,00
“I paint, I paint and my paintings grow
into bright colours and into a more
and more simple structure.
Not nature, not man, but nature and
man dimensioned in need of the
most absolute synthesis, brought
to that extreme limit of essentiality,
where memory ends in order to have
the idea. Ambition of a conceptual
reality, that is no longer reality, but the
highest, the purest, the most abstract
expression of that reality.
In this order time loses its sense of
measure to cancel itself in unlimited
space, in the sourceless light and
in the horizontality and verticality,
arranged in the perfection of the
right angle, a static image of a
moving point becomes clears and
defines itself in becoming square and
rectangle, organised measure of light
in the space of light.
(Antonio Calderara)
8
Antonio Calderara
Sei serigrafie
Mantova, Maurizio Corraini, 1972
N. 60+XXV ex. numerati (24) e firmati
dall’artista su ogni tavola. Cartella
editoriale contenente n. 6 serigrafie
sciolte e firmate. Cm 30x30
Very good condition
€ 600,00
Six precisely square serigraphs each
show, alternating only vertical and
horizontal positions, five rectangles
placed side by side to recreate
another square. The severity of
the geometry is put to use of the
immateriality of the nearly transparent
colours and subtle differences.
The feeling of suspension evoked
while turning the pages makes this
piece immediately attributable to the
artist.
9
Giuseppe Capogrossi
Capogrossi
Parigi, XX Siècle, 1961
Brossura.
Cm 26,5x20,5. Very good condition
Contiene n. 3 litografie originali
€ 120,00
Catalogue published for the exhibition
at the XX Siècle Gallery in Paris in
May 1961.
French text by Roland Penrose.
Illustrated with 3 original lithographs.
“Chacun de ces signes sourtout
lorsquu’ils sont disposés en séries,
rappelle quelque alphabet que nous
ne pouvons lire, cependant que leur
succession et leur ordre a un tel
pouvoir de suggestion qu’il implique la
présence d’un sens secret”.
(Roland Penrose)
10
Eugenio Carmi
Stripsody
Roma, Arco d’Alibert. Houston, Kiko
Galleries, 1966
Cartonato. Cm 29x20,5
Very good condition, Con disco vinile
33 giri e glossario per l’esecuzione.
Interpretazione vocale di Cathy
Berberian. Testo di Umberto Eco.
Very good condition
€ 300,00
In 1966, during the friendly artistic
encounter between Cathy Berberian,
Eugenio Carmi and Umberto Eco,
“Stripsody” was created. It is a book
that page after page illustrates,
thanks to the drawings of Eugenio
Carmi, the vocal technique of Cathy
Berberian using comic book sounds
(onomatopoeia). The unique voice
of Cathy Berberian sings Stripsody with no music - merging with Carmi’s
illustrations in a flow of stimuli and
multisensory evocations. Eco stated
in one of his works: “... while Cathy
began to “sing” these sounds, Carmi
proceeded in “writing” the score. The
two aspects of the work were created
together, and Cathy’s voice gave
more than one graphic suggestion
while Carmi’s layout provided more
than one vocal solution.“
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.88
11
Giuliano Della Casa
Alfabeto
Torino, Geiger, 1973. Introduzione di
Adrano Spatola
Tiratura non conosciuta, Brossura.
Cm 15x11
Very good condition
€ 120,00
Giuliano Della Casa’s starting point for
his work consisted, in the early sixties,
in a search of possible basic forms in
painting and sculpture.... Alphabet is
recaptured and resumed, as a symbol
of calligraphy, on the simplification
and abstraction attitude not only of
the act but also of reflection on the
grounds of “doing.”
(Taken from the text on the back
cover)
Bibliography:
Marco Bazzini - Giorgio Maffei
Geiger - Tèchne. Edizioni di poesia e arte
Pistoia, Gli Ori, 2002
Pag.67
12
Mario Diacono
JCT 6 - Writhings 1971
Firenze, Exempla, 1973
N.100 ex. numerati (33/100) e firmati
dall’artista, Legatura alla giapponese.
Cm 21.5x12
Very good condition
€ 300,00
With his multiple activities as a writer,
art critic, visual poet and even gallery
manager, Mario Diacono has covered
every possible experimentation
method by participating in major
vanguard magazines of the 1960s and
1970s.
At the end of the 1960s he moved
to the United States to teach Italian
literature at the University of Berkeley.
He remained in America from 1968
to 1970. He returned in 1972 and
stayed there until the summer of
1976. During this period of time a few
book-objects including “Writings 1971”
were published. This consisted in a
series of pages on which, with the
use of a geometrical red checkered
grid, the artist traced the signs of a
personal and symbolic alphabet.
Bibliography:
Il libro d’artista
A cura di Giorgio Maffei
Biblioteca ideale - libri d’artista contemporanei
Milano, Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2003
Pag.14
13
Nicolay Diulgheroff
Accertamento del colore
intermaterico
Torino, Edizioni dello Studio di
Informazione Estetica. Stampa
Officina d’Arte Lucini e C., Milano,
1972
N.150 ex. numerati e firmati, Tavole
sciolte in cartella telata e box di
cartone. Cm 51x51
A cura di Carlo Belloli. Cartelle sciolte
contenti testi tradotti in varie lingue.
Doppia tavola con poesia concreta di
Carlo Belloli.
N. 10 serigrafie originali di Diulgheroff,
ognuna firmata e numerata al retro.
Very good condition
€ 900,00
“....le forme che Diulgheroff inventa
risultano puntualmente dinamiche,
a ricorsi lineari curvi, spilarici,
elissoidali, parabolici e vengono
distribuite in campi ottici espansivi,
virtualmente rotatorii, visualmente
interferenti. In questi piani
interdisposti la dislocazione spaziale
delle forme agisce in termini di
equilibrio istabile, di gravitazione
immaginaria, promuovendo
un’atmosfera di magica geometricità
e di irrealtà strutturale .....”
(dal testo di Carlo Belloli)
14
Peter Downsbrough
Two Lines Five Section
Milano, Franco Toselli, 1975.
Brossura. Cm 16x11
Very good condition
€ 120,00
The absence of words, the pages that
show the repeated representation
of two brief lines lead to a linguistic
process which is the subtraction
and reduction to a minimum, the
impoverishment of signs for the
discovery of their archetypes.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Esthétique du livre d’artiste
Paris, Bibiliothéque Nat. de France, 1997
Pag.254
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag. 96
15
Luigi Ferro
Moltiplicazione
Torino, Geiger, 1968
Con 20 tavole e testo poetico di
Adriano Spatola.
Riproduzione in rilievo di un’opera
dell’artista in copertina
Brossura. Cm 15x15
Buone condizioni
€ 100,00
The Geiger publishing house’s activity,
established in Turin in 1967 through a
venture of brothers Adriano, Maurizio
and Tiziano Spatola, is put into effect,
in the books sector, with about 120
volumes published outside from any
commercial or publishing market
sector.
Tangible, technological, spatial,
automatic, gestural, visual, cybernetic,
ideological or committed words.
This precious little book contains all
the motions supporting the total poetry
and “permanent experimentation”
project stubbornly desired and
pursued by the publishing house.
Bibliography:
Marco Bazzini, Giorgio Maffei
Geiger - Tècne - Edizioni di poesia e arte
Pistoia, Gli Ori, 2002
Pag.67
16
Marco Gastini
11/24 senza titolo
Bologna, Edizioni Ginevra Grigolo,
1980
N.40+33+VII ex. numerati (III) e
firmati.
Con una fotografia originale di Piero
Casadei. Stampa in serigrafia.
N. 16 tavole. Libro d’artista con
disegni e interventi originali dell’autore
Brossura con cartella editoriale
stampata. Cm 50x33
Very good condition
€ 1.400,00
With the piece entitled “11/24”,
exhibited at the Studio G7 gallery in
Bologna in 1979, Gastini gave a twist
to his work by inserting a tree trunk
penetrated by lead and antimony
castings in the piece. “The natural
element, alive and life-giving, radiates
energy, cleverly represented by the
castings, which is transmitted to the
canvas and thus creates a field of
tension...”
This book, published the following
year, was the “translation” of that
work, keeping its energy and life force
intact.
The “pearl white”, mother of pearl,
pigment used on some pages, which
became the artist’s distinctive feature
in the following years, represented
the escape from “non-colour”, in that
it embodied “all colours”, giving the
surface a vibration and determining
a perceptual gap in the eye of the
observer.
17
Marco Gastini
Parete
New York, Lapp Princess Press, 1977
Brossura. Pagine a fisarmonica.
Cm 15x15. Buone condizioni
€ 60,00
The writer and art critic, Amy Baker,
founded the Lapp Princess Press
in New York in 1977 with the aim of
creating artists’ books that could be
purchased by the widest possible
audience. Each was published with
a very high print run of 2,000 copies
and sold at $ 3. While the artist was
given total freedom concerning the
ultimate product, Baker set the format
for the books. Each closed book was
to be a uniform six inches square.
Baker succeeded in the ambitious
undertaking of publishing twelve small
volumes between 1977 and 1979,
the year she left to become executive
publisher of Artforum.
This small leparello by Marco Gastini,
no. 9 in the series respects the
standards: a 15 x 15 cm book that
recalls, from its title and contents,
the wall works with the same name
carried out in those years. In October
2007 an exhibition was held at the
Clark Art Institute in Williamstown,
MA, entitled Lapp Princess Press: A
Small Press and Artists’ Books from
the Late 1970s, whereby the complete
series was on exhibit.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.87
18
Wade Guyton - John Kelsey
Black Paintings
Frankfurt, Portikus. Zurich, JRP
Ringier, 2010
N.1500 ex. Brossura telata.
Cm 30,5x23. Very good condition.
€ 400,00
Born in 1972, Wade Guyton is a
post-conceptual artist among the first
to have used digital technology to
create his works on canvas, reaching
millionaire prices ​​
on the art market.
His device of choice, in addition to the
computer, is an Epson Pro 9600 ink-jet
printer used for large formats.
The 800 pages of this book were
printed precisely with this printer, they
were then scanned and reprinted in
offset.
The resulting images depict the
struggle between the print medium
and the material that leaves its traces
on the pages: stains, tears, drops,
streaks, mistakes. A stack of glossy
paper that seems to be a test print
whose fate is destruction after having
been used to obtain sharp, flawless
and intact pages.
The book is created, therefore, as a
reflection on original/copy, production/
reproduction, issues that are at the
centre of Guyton’s artistic project. He
won “The most beautiful Swiss books
of 2011” award.
19
Elke Haarer
(senza titolo)
s.l., 1997
N.600 ex, Brossura. Cm 15x10,5
Very good condition.
€ 120,00
Elke Haarer was born in Nuremberg
in 1969.
Her works, large canvases or sitespecific pieces, fluctuate between
minimalist harshness and the impact
of advertising graphics. Similarly
to this little book, with a white and
blank cover and which you can leaf
through indifferently in an obsessive
and harsh symmetry: a catalogue of
colours juxtaposed in four by four on
each page whereby the clarity of the
glossy paper, bright colours and little
obvious combinations create spaces
of extraordinary balance.
20
Julio Le Parc
Julio Le Parc
Milano, Achille Mauri, 1969
Cartonato con sovraccopertina
Edizione speciale con libro d’artista e
multiplo.
Testo di Enzo Mari e Julio Le Parc in
Italiano, Inglese, Francese e Tedesco
Contenuto in custodia in cartone.
Cm 33x33. Very good condition
€ 350,00
Likein all his works, even in this book/
multiple artist piece, Le Parc made
an extensive use of plastic elements,
surprising and influencing the viewer.
The artist, for this purpose, resorted
to tricks that exploited the effect
of reflections, optical illusions that
simulated movement following in the
footsteps of Op Art and Kinetic Art.
With the use of glasses, an
emblematic tool, you were able to look
at the pages of the book obtaining
kinetic and three-dimensional effects
through prisms.
The text, by Enzo Mari and Julio le
Parc, contained a political and cultural
statement explaining their decision
of withdrawing their works from
Documenta in 1968.
21
Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Chagny, Pietro Sparta, 1984
Brossura. Cm 18x17,5
Very good condition
€ 160,00
“I’d like to produce something that
I would not be ashamed to show
Giotto” is the revealing declaration of
Sol Lewitt about his Wall Drawings.
This little book can, in a small part,
describe this will. The pages seem
to hold the drawings for a more
ambitious project, a large-scale effort,
to be placed on large walls.
But everything is already there: the
rough surface that looks like plaster,
the geometry, the sense of space, the
physical volumes and cold colours,
stretched out on wide backgrounds
illuminated by oblique light, almost
metaphysical.
Bibliography:
Sol Lewitt Books - 1966-1990
Koln, Walter Konig, 1990
Pag.64
Giorgio Maffei, Emanuele De Donno
Sol Lewitt - Artist’s Books
Foligno, Edizioni Via Industriæ, 2009
Pag.109
Bruno Tonini
Sol Lewitt: Libros - El concepto como arte
Santander - Ediciones La Bahia - Archivio
La Fuente, 2014
Pag.148
22
Sol LeWitt
Paris, Black Gouaches
Editions Séguier, 1992
N.1000 ex. numerati (325).
Cartonato a fisarmonica. Cm 37x30
Very good condition
€ 350,00
In 1980, especially after a trip to
Italy, LeWitt began using gouache,
an opaque water-based paint, to
produce free flowing abstract works in
contrasting colours.
This technique represented a
significant estrangement from the rest
of his practice: Lewitt created these
works with his own hands, irregular
shapes, parallel curves, liquid figures
that the artist still had complete
control over placing them in frames
able to provide them with a structure,
a framework giving them solidity and a
three-dimensional aspect.
Bibliography:
Giorgio Maffei, Emanuele De Donno
Sol Lewitt - Artist’s Books
Foligno, Edizioni Via Industriæ, 2009
Pag.126
Bruno Tonini
Sol Lewitt: Libros - El concepto como arte
Santander - Ediciones La Bahia - Archivio
La Fuente, 2014
Pag.162
23
Arrigo Lora Totino - Sandro
De Alexandris
Cromofonemi 1967
Torino, Lora Totino - De Alexandris,
1967
Tavole sciolte in cartella editoriale.
Firmato da Arrigo Lora Totino.
Cm 28x22. Very good condition
€ 400,00
It was designed to be published in the
first issue of the Geiger anthology,
Turin, 1967. Each example consists of
seven loose sheets in a folder. Each
sheet has a coloured vertical band
whereby one or two words are written
on it.
“Therefore: if “and” is yellow and “if”
is blue and “is” is red, then “andis”
will be orange, “and if” green, “if it is”
purple. The sheets can be arranged
vertically, horizontally or even
diagonally, or in various other ways.
The choice is left to the interpreter.”
(“Le carte del gioco” (The Game
Cards). Turin, Martano, 2001)
Bibliography:
I libri di ALT Arrigo Lora Totino
Collana In forma di libro
Comune di Modena, Biblioteca Poletti, 2006
Pag.29
Giorgio Maffei
¿Qué es un libro de artista?
Santander - Ediciones La Bahia - Archivio
La Fuente, 2014
Pag.148
Giorgio Maffei
Arrigo Lora Totino - la parola come poesia
segno suono gesto - 1962-1982
Ravenna, Danilo Montanari Editore, 2015
Pag.150
24
Aloisio Magalhaes
Topografische analyse
Hilversum, Steendrukkerij de Jong &
Co, 1974
Brossura. Cm 25x25,5.
Very good condition
€ 100,00
In the opening pages of the book a
painting by Balthasar van der Ast
(1593-1657) is reproduced, a typical
Flemish still life.
The surface of the framework is then
subdivided, thanks to the overlapping
of a grid printed on transparent paper,
in 46x46 units in turn divided into four
zones that identify the architectural
background, the shadow area, the
decorative elements (flowers, fruits,
insects) and finally the front surface.
In the following pages the various
details are analysed as a function
of their topographical quality. The
magnified details become abstract
images showing the pattern of coloured
dots used in the offset printing process.
These enlargements, which reveal the
structure of the press in offset made by
overlapping four different colours, in
fact transform a flat image into a threedimensional surface.
Magalhaes said his approach
brings to mind the geotechnical
investigations carried out in samples
of a piece of land where something
is going to be built, in order to assess
the depth.
25
Robert Mangold
Six Arcs
New York, Lapp Princess Press, 1978
Legatura alla giapponese. Cm 15x15
Buone condizioni.
€ 120,00
The writer and art critic, Amy Baker,
founded the Lapp Princess Press
in New York in 1977 with the aim of
creating artists’ books that could be
purchased by the widest possible
audience. Each was published with a
very high print run of 2,000 copies and
sold at $ 3. While the artist was given
total freedom concerning the ultimate
product, Baker set the format for the
books. Each closed book was to be a
uniform six inches square.
Baker succeeded in the ambitious
undertaking of publishing twelve small
volumes between 1977 and 1979,
the year she left to become executive
publisher of Artforum.
This little book with Japanese binding,
alternating pages full of orange color
pages in which they are painted
strings in the early programmatic
position already on the cover. It is the
no. 11 of the series.
In October 2007 an exhibition was
held at the Clark Art Institute in
Williamstown, MA, entitled Lapp
Princess Press: A Small Press and
Artists’ Books from the Late 1970s,
whereby the complete series was on
exhibit.
Bibliography:
Il libro d’artista
A cura di Giorgio Maffei
Biblioteca ideale - libri d’artista contemporanei
26
Man Ray
Le Pain Bleu
Parigi, Alexandre Iolas, 1972.
Copertina in cartone pesante rivestito
di velluto grigio azzurro. Applicata una
scultura in gesso dipinto. Legaccio in
fettuccia verde.
All’interno la serie di tavole stampate
su pagine a leporello delle serigrafie
“Revolving doors”. Cm 24,5x17,5.
Very good condition
€ 1.400,00
In the early seventies, the era of the
greatest expansion of consumerism,
the art system suggested the idea
of ​​going beyond one single model,
favouring a widening of the market.
Here Man Ray imposed the idea of ​​
the book as an object hence as a
full blown piece of art thus offering
access to art to the widest audience
possible.
The series of works foresake
signature and numbering, even
at its last bastion: the piece had
no declared edition, the roles,
ambiguously undefined between
publisher and artist, produced a work
of art that, in the wake of the Dadaist
and surrealist tradition, allowed more
people to view the work of one of
the greatest masters of historical
avantgarde art.
27
Christian Marclay
Cyanotypes
Zurich, JRP/Ringier, 2011
Cartonato. Cm 33x22,5
Very good condition
€ 120,00
Christian Marclay, a visual artist
and composer, explores the
contrast between sound recording,
photography, video and film by
using and reviving old and obsolete
technologies.
In this book he collects and combines
audio cassettes and cyanotype, a
photographic process invented in
1842. With this technique Marclay
“photographs” abstract tangles
obtained from the tapes by exposing
them directly on the sensitive surface
and producing images and colours
that deliberately pay homage to
the great abstract painters or even
the monochromes of Yves Klein.
28
Paolo Masi
La Geometria del posto
Firenze, Zona Edizioni, 1980
N. 200 ex. numerati (20/200) e firmati
dall’artista. Brossura. Cm 24x24
Libro d’artista con interventi manuali.
Very good condition
€ 400,00
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix defined it
as a “Manipulated book”. Nothing
written, but each sheet is the subject
of special treatment: the pages made
of kraft paper have folds, threads
that create various warpages,
brushstrokes made by hand. Only
the traces of the artist’s gesture
remains, of the various steps, of
the metamorphosis created by the
creative act.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.108
29
Jonas Mekas
George Maciunas
Reminiscensijos
New York, in proprio, 1972
N.250 ex. numerati e firmati.
Rilegalo in legno con cerniere
in ottone. Sul piatto anteriore
numerazione (64) a stencil in
inchiostro nero
Cm 14x19,5x3. Firma in inchiostro
rosso di Jonas Mekas.
Very good condition.
€ 1.100,00
Designed, produced and created by
George Maciunas, the book alternates
poetic texts in Lithuanian with
photographs taken by Jonas Mekas,
the father of American vanguard
cinema.
The memories of his troubled youth in
his country of origin, his stay in postNazi Germany refugee camps and his
coming to America in the fifties follow
one another like in a film sequence.
A title that immediately declares its
intentions, a book created like a film of
memories.
30
Bruno Munari
Scultura da viaggio
Lugo, Exit Edizioni, 1991
N. 60 ex. firmati. Scultura pieghevole
in cartone in custodia editoriale.
Cm 15x15. Very good condition.
€ 450,00
“Munari created these “travel
sculptures”...”foldable” and light
sculptures, small ones to pack in a
suitcase and take with us on a trip so
that they can create, for every one
of us, a reference point with our own
cultures, in impersonal hotel rooms.”
(Domus n. 359, October 1959)
“The sculpture is folded inside an
envelope. You open the envelope
and remove the sculpture. Place the
sculpture on a horizontal surface
(on inclined surfaces it slips) and
before turning off the lights look how
it illuminates the various protruding
or recessed parts, the full parts and
the empty ones. Turn it on the other
side, it changes appearance, your
practical thoughts will slowly become
aesthetic ones (the speed depends on
you), you will no longer wonder “cusa
l’e’ chel rob ki” (what is this thing in
Milanese dialect, ed) and you will fall
asleep happy. Good night.”
(Bruno Munari, Codice ovvio, Einaudi)
Bibliography:
Libro/Opera - Viaggio nelle pagine d’artista La
collezione di Danilo Montanari
Ravenna, Danilo Montanari Editore, 2011
Pag.132
31
Bruno Munari
Scultura da viaggio
Milano, Munari, 1971
Firma autografa di Munari. Scultura
pieghevole in cartone in custodia di
cartoncino e busta editoriale.
Cm 38x18x8. Very good condition.
€ 850,00
“Sculpture is not only a marble or
bronze object but something in three
dimensions, which communicates via
a new visual aesthetic message.
If you do not confuse matter with art,
value with price, even a cardboard
sculpture can be appreciated. It is a
travel sculpture because it is light and
foldable, it fits in a suitcase and, once
opened and placed on a surface,
creates a relationship with space
enhanced by light.
Other travel sculptures designed by
Munari were produced in series and
every Museum of Modern Art in the
world has one in their collections.
(From the text written inside the
cardboard case)
32
Olaf Nicolai
30 Farben
Bonn, Bonner Kunstverein. Koln,
Salon Verlag, 2000
N.750 ex. firmati dall’artista, Brossura.
Cm 23,5x28,5
Con CD (Sound for Pantone Wall).
Very good condition.
€ 220,00
Published during the “Pantone wall,
instrumented” exhibit at the Bonner
Kunstverein in Bonn in 2000, this
book reproduced entire sheets of
colour from the Pantone catalogue
that inspired the exhibition. The
book is accompanied by a CD of the
installation’s soundtrack: six pieces of
electronic music specially composed
and recorded in loop.
Pantone Inc. is a U.S. based company
that deals with cataloguing colours
and their identification system which
is now an international standard in
the world of graphic design, but lately
also for colour management for the
industry.
Nicolai selected 30 colours among the
thousands of shades in the Pantone
catalogue, fascinated by the effect
that the standardisation process has
on artistic practice.
33
Olaf Nicolai
Pour Finir Encore
Ferrara, Padiglione di Arte
Contemporanea, 2008
Contiene: 1 Essay (20 pp.), 6 posters
(19,8”x26,8”), Pour finir encore 2/
Movements (12 pp:), 1 poster
19,8”x26,8”).
Copertina/custodia in cartonato.
Cm 34,5x24,5. Very good condition
€ 120,00
The artist’s book was created to
accompany the exhibition of the
same name held at the Pavilion of
Contemporary Art in Ferrara in 2008.
“The German artist has frequently
investigated the historic and symbolic
substratum of the contemporary
world through visual devices that
embrace the aesthetic dimension
and the intangible field of thought,
involving memory, subjective identity
and its forms of relationship. The
two works at the PCA were inspired
by the history of twentieth-century
Ferrara (the workers’ struggles at
the beginning of the century and
the “barricades”, the Fascist era, the
industrial reconversion of the Second
World War) and by the city’s special
nature reinvented by artists (from De
Chirico to Antonioni), ideal backdrop
on which to project an imaginary plot“
(Stefano Chiodi)
The book contains a series of prints
made with the beautiful “iris” colourprinting technique, invented in
the sixties and which immediately
brings to mind the counterculture
publications of those years.
34
Mimmo Paladino
Fragole
Firenze, Salone Villa Romana, 1987
Brossura. Cm 11,5x10,4
Very good condition
€ 70,00
Paladino created a more archaic,
Mediterranean, dreamlike art, whose
main theme is memory and quotations.
In this small book, through dense
references to myth and resorting
to archetypal images, the artist
developed his personal language of
signs and put dreams and visions that
draw on deep and irrational feelings
on the pages.
Bibliography:
Il libro d’artista
A cura di Giorgio Maffei
Biblioteca ideale - libri d’artista contemporanei
Milano, Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2003
Pag.22
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.89
35
Claudio Parmiggiani
Astrazione
Milano, Scheiwiller, 1968
A cura di Vincenzo Agnetti
N. 1000 ex. Brossura. Cm 11x7
Very good condition
€ 450,00
“....It is a sheet of cardboard with a red
star on it which is a trademark. The
number 50 is printed underneath the
star. I wanted to acquire the other 49
sheets, printed in the same size and
with the same repeated image, the
only variation is in the number that is
progressive from 1 to 50....The text,
instead, is only one repeated over and
over again on all the pages, however
contradicting the previous one (like
the stars) in an absurd way, only the
text on star No. 1 refers to a previous
image that does not exist. This creates
a precise identity between text and
image, and both of them with this
infinite rotation.
The text comes from psychological
tests which appeared on the magazine
Espresso ages ago.”
(Claudio Parmiggiani)
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.42
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.100
36
A. A. (A. R.) Penk
Standart Making (Standarts)
Munchen, Verlag Jahn und Kluser.
Koln, Galerie Michael Werner, 1970
Brossura. N.1000 ex. Cm 30x21
Very good condition
€ 800,00
In 1968 Penck coined the term
standart to indicate, as the artist
himself stated, “a method of making
information products, a production of
the brain, conceived for the purpose
of achieving full perception of the
content of visual information, thus
offering the possibility of imitation.
Art thus acquires an explicitly rational
function.”
In the 1970s Penk’s mark became
unmistakable, simplified, concentrated
on finding the basic gesture, digging
into the primordial past retracing the
geological stratifications of art history
backwards.
“A.R. Penk in Standart Making
used the book to show the process
of developing a vocabulary made
up of signs that appear, grow and
transform.” (Anne Mœglin-Delcroix)
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag. 93
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag. 90
37
Stephen Prina
Monochrome Painting
Chicago, The Renaisance Society,
1989
N.1500 ex. Brossura. Tavole
applicate. Cm 20,5x15,5
Very good condition
€ 120,00
The book by Stephen Prina was
created for the exhibition held at the
Renaissance Society of Chicago in
1989.
The installation consisted of 14
monochrome plates which refer to
the Way of the Cross’s number of
stations, each placed in relation to
a monochrome picture of a great
twentieth century artist.
The mentioned monochromes are
by Malevič, Rodchenko, Strzeminski,
Newman, Rauschenberg, Kelly
Klein, Manzoni, Reinhardt, Fontana,
Marden, Ryman, Richter and
Palermo.
Similarly, the book contains
fourteen pages on each of which
a “reproduction” of one of the
monochromes is applied: for each
one black is used, a colour that
contains all colours, and maintains the
proportions of the original piece.
Each one is identified with the Calvary
station, the title and author of the
monochrome and its current location,
whether it’s a private collection or a
public museum.
For the fourteen wooden boards Prina
used a papyrus green spray paint
for metal surfaces that was used for
Volkswagen cars manufactured in
1985.
38
Sergio Putatti
Variabili
Torino, LP 220, 1974
Testo di Franco Torriani.
N.1000 ex. Brossura con mylar
stampato. Cm 20x20.
Very good condition
€ 120,00
Quant à Sergio Putatti, c’est une
véritable axiomatique qu’il fournit dans
ses opuscules: “Le problème devient
un problème de relation entre la
variable comme résultat ”esthétique”
(Anne Mœglin-Delcroix)
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.38
39
Fred Sandback
Ten isometric Drawings for Ten
Vertical Constructions
New York, Lapp Princess Press, 1977
Brossura. Cm 15x15
Very good condition
€ 100,00
The writer and art critic, Amy Baker,
founded the Lapp Princess Press
in New York in 1977 with the aim of
creating artists’ books that could be
purchased by the widest possible
audience. Each was published with a
very high print run of 2,000 copies and
sold at $ 3. While the artist was given
total freedom concerning the ultimate
product, Baker set the format for the
books. Each closed book was to be a
uniform six inches square.
Baker succeeded in the ambitious
undertaking of publishing twelve small
volumes between 1977 and 1979,
the year she left to become executive
publisher of Artforum.
This little book exemplifies the artist’s
view on her personal relationship
between art work and exhibition
space. It is the no. 1 of the series.
In October 2007 an exhibition was
held at the Clark Art Institute in
Williamstown, MA, entitled Lapp
Princess Press: A Small Press and
Artists’ Books from the Late 1970s,
whereby the complete series was on
exhibit.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.39
40
Dieter Roth
Daily Mirror Book
Hilversum, Steendrukkerij de Jong &
Co, 1965
Tiratura 1000 ex. 60 tavole numerate
in matita rossa in cartella editoriale.
Cm 25x25. Very good condition. Libro
proveniente dall’archivio Roth.
€ 450,00
In 1961 Roth created the book “Daily
Mirror”, 2x2 cm, obtained by putting
together pages cut from the same
newspaper. He would later recapture
the idea by ​​enlarging the images of
the miniature book bringing them
back to a “normal size”, making
them unrecognisable compared to
the original materials. In 1965 he
created an edition of 60 25x25 cm
boards printed on both sides and
again in 1970 published a book with
the same title but 23.5x18 cm in size.
All of these books cannot be read in
the traditional sense as they contain
only fragments of images, articles or
advertisements. Words are separated
by their meanings, transformed into
visual noise.
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix
Livres d’artistes – Collection Semaphore
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985
Pag.27
Il libro d’artista
A cura di Giorgio Maffei
Biblioteca ideale - libri d’artista contemporanei
Milano, Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2003
Pag.23
41
Wolfgang Schmidt
Buch 7. Quadratschnitte
Frankfurt Main, Typos Verlag, 1966
N.100 ex. Legatura a spirale.
Cm 26x26. Buone condizioni
€ 1.100,00
“1 Druckform (Sieb) mit 6 quadraten
bedruckt 1 seitig 1 bogen a rot =
12 Seiten bedruckt 2seitig 1 bogen
a rot b schwarz um 180 ° gedreht
= 24 seiten diagonal zerschnitten
abschnitte mitgebunden=48 seiten
quadratschnitte”
This is the description, shown in the
inside front cover, of the generation
process of geometric shapes starting
with 6 squares.
Wolfgang Schmidt is considered one
of the most important representatives
of commercial art and graphics in
Germany after World War II. A bookobject reminiscent of illegible books
by Bruno Munari so defined by its
author because “there is nothing to
read but a lot to learn through the
senses”
Bibliography:
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.119
42
Giuseppe Spagnulo
Libro Primo di Archeologia
Munchen, Ottenhausen Verlag, 1978
N.25 ex. numerati (18) e firmati,
Cartonato con scatola editoriale.
Cm 23,5x23x4
Libro d’artista con interventi e disegni
eseguiti a mano.
Very good condition.
€ 1.600,00
Spagnulo expresses his energy also
through the choice of materials.
For the pages of his book he used
heavy cardboard, twine to tie them,
dry printing for the title and an inked
stamp for the colophon. “Work”
materials that express strength and
vital energy. The burnt areas caused
by a few interventions show the
effects that fire, with the help of the
artist, has on the pages.
Each page interacts with the other
page, it bears the signs, it represents
the negative, or the missing part.
Twin pages that open show signs of
mutual separation and when they are
closed again find the completeness of
their final recomposition.
Bibliography:
Giorgio Maffei, Maura Picciau
Il libro come opera d’arte
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2006
Pag.130
43
Ettore Spalletti
Kleve, 2009
Pescara, Vistamare, 2004
N.100 ex. numerati (91/100) e firmati
dall’artista. Rilegato.
Cm 21x15. Very good condition
€ 450,00
Ettore Spalletti was able to transfer
the same aura of spirituality that
pervades all his work in his books.
Weightless sheets satured with
dense, very pure colour, combine
the conceptual thought of abstract,
concrete and minimalist art with the
chromatic sense of Italian late Middle
Age and Renaissance painting.
A pristine “musical” opera, an upbeat
composition.
44
Niele Toroni
Pinselabdrucke N.50…
Bochum, Kunstverein, 1977
N.500 ex. Brossura. Cm 26x21
Very good condition
€ 250,00
In 1966 the BMPT was established. A
group formed by Daniel Buren, Olivier
Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele
Toroni. The four artists shared the
idea of ​​refusing an art that was able
to convey a message or to evoke
an emotion in addition to the radical
rejection of any artistic ideology.
Niele Toroni has always remained
faithful to these ideas. Ever since
the beginning of his artistic career
he painted, on various surfaces, only
single “imprints” of colour obtained
with a n. 50 brush at regular intervals
of 30 cm in both directions.
Niele Toroni’s challenge was
concentrated between an attempt at
homogeneous brush strokes and the
uniqueness of each brush stroke.
The sober and minimalist layout
that is Niele Toroni transformed the
catalogue into a real artist’s book.
45
Richard Tuttle
Eight Words from a Reading at
Brooklyn College
Firenze, Galleria Victoria Miro, 1990
Brossura. Cm 16x7,5. Very good
condition
€ 160,00
Since the mid-1960s, Tuttle has
created an extraordinarily varied body
of work that eludes any historical
or stylistic categorisation. His work
exists in the space between painting,
sculpture, poetry, assemblage, and
drawing. He drew beauty out of
humble materials to examine fragility
or spirituality through small and
intimate works.
This slender and elegant artist book,
printed on silver sheets, quotes eight
words expressed by the Artist during a
Reading at Brooklyn College in 1990:
“dough”, “seven”, “Silver”, “display”,
“actual”, “sparkles”, “action”,
“accurate.”
Every word is enclosed in a black
decorated frame with an uncertain
and interrupted stroke.
Bibliography:
Richard Tuttle : Field of Stars, A Book on the
Books
CGAC, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea,
Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2002
Pag.133
46
Ignacio Uriarte
Three Hundred Sixty
Venezia, Automatic Books, 2012
N.100+10 ex. Cartonato con spirale.
Cm 29x30. Very good condition.
€ 80,00
The artist’s book of the German artist,
Ignacio Uriarte, “Three Hundred
Sixty”, is a collection of 49 drawings,
as big as an LP, which can be read
as looping animation. The book is
the result of a personal reflection
on the artist’s daily routines read
through typical manners of sixties
and seventies conceptual art and
minimalism. For years Ignacio Uriarte
worked in the business administration
sector before deciding to devote
himself entirely to art. His small
curiously shaped drawings could not
escape the attention of Automatic
Books, an independent publisher of
Venice whose activities range from
publishing to different areas of the
visual arts.
Presente in:
Archivio Collecció MACBA
Centre d’Estudis i Documentació
47
Jiri Valoch
Optical Book
Brescia, Amodulo, 1970
N.1000+100 ex. Edizione speciale
in 100 ex. contenente una serigrafia
numerata (96/100) e firmata
dall’artista, Brossura con busta
editoriale. Cm 20x20
Very good condition
€ 250,00
Sarenco, reflecting activism in the
art world and intense editorial and
organizational activities, founded
the magazines “Amodulo” in 1968
and “Lotta poetica” (Poetic battle) in
1971. In 1969 he also founded the
publishing house “Edizioni Amodulo”
which published the “20x20” series
of authors such Calderara, Sarenco
himself, Paul De Vree, Miccini,
Coppini, Perfetti, Padin, Kostelanetz
and many others belonging to
the same generation and artistic
experience.
In the series this edition, which
contains a numbered and signed
silkscreen by the artist, is at no. 4.
Presente in:
Bibliothèque Kandinsky - Centre Pompidou,
Paris
48
Lawrence Weiner - Matt
Mullican
In the Crack of the Dawn
Lucerne, 36 Galerie. Brussels, Yves
Gevaert, 1991
Brossura. Cm 26x18
Very good condition.
€ 240,00
“The crack of the dawn” is the moment
that separates day from night at
sunrise. The title is a metaphor for
a specific state of consciousness:
in the early hours of the morning
the individual starts perceiving the
world and has not yet reached the
state of day-consciousness and the
boundaries between dream and reality,
between object and individual, are not
yet clearly in focus .
In 1991 Lawrence Weiner and Matt
Mullican investigated, using comic
book language, this condition of
the human psyche and its ability of
referring to reality by establishing
familiar symbols.
49
William Xerra
All’altra estremità del campo
Torino, Geiger, 1970
N.450 ex. numerati (320/450).
Cartonato. Cm 21x21. Very good
condition.
€ 350,00
The perforated white cardboard pages
of the book-object, “All’altra estremità
del campo” (“At the other end of the
field”), were made by combining a
series of cuts in order to form shapes
so that there are no right angles.
“Hence, the hardness of the cutouts
leads,” recalled Arrigo Lora Totino,
“to the other end of the field, an open
field ..... sign of a floating boundary
line on where to linger”.
The Xerra field is a physical and
metaphorical place that urges the
viewer to participate, whereby the
artist steers you in the topological
geometry of a visual field of
awareness.
Bibliography:
Il libro d’artista
A cura di Giorgio Maffei
Biblioteca ideale - libri d’artista contemporanei
Milano, Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2003
Pag.26
Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, Liliana Dematteis,
Giorgio Maffei, Annalisa Rimmaudo
Guardare, raccontare, pensare, conservare
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2004
Pag.113
Giorgio Maffei, Maura Picciau
Il libro come opera d’arte
Mantova, Edizioni Corraini, 2006
Pag.127
50
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