Monday, August 30, 2010

The Man Who Married Text And Art


 
Front endpaper to: SATIÉ, Alain. Pour ainsi dire. Gravures de Isidore Isou,
Maurice Lemaître, Roland Sabatier, Alain Satié, Jacques Spacagna.
Paris: Éditions PSI, 1971.

At the close of WWII, Isidore Goldstein, a precocious Romanian artist-poet born in 1925, came to Paris, looked around, decided to remake the arts, adopted the surname Isou, and staked his claim:

Destruction of WORDS for LETTERS

ISIDORE ISOU    Believes in the potential elevation beyond WORDS; wants
    the development of transmissions where nothing is
                  lost in the process; offers a verb equal to a shock. By
    the overload of expansion the forms leap up by themselves.
ISIDORE ISOU    Begins the destruction of words for letters.
ISIDORE ISOU    Wants letters to pull in among themselves all desires.
ISIDORE ISOU    Makes people stop using foregone conclusions, words.
ISIDORE ISOU    Shows another way out between WORDS and RENUNCIATION:
                   LETTERS. He will create emotions against language, for the
                   pleasure of the tongue.
           It consists of teaching that letters have a destination
     other than words.
ISOU            Will unmake words into their letters.
                Each poet will integrate everything into Everything
                Everything must be revealed by letters.
POETRY CAN NO LONGER BE REMADE.

ISIDORE ISOU IS STARTING
     A NEW VEIN OF LYRICISM.
           Anyone who can not leave words behind can stay back with them!

[Extract from Introduction à une Nouvelle Poésie et une Nouvelle Musique. Paris: Gallimard, 1947. Manifesto of Letterist Poetry, B. Innovation I.]



Isidore Isou. Self-Portrait. 1952.

Declaring himself a Lettriste while still a teenager in Romania, he established the Lettrism group in Paris of which he was the only member. No membership drive necessary, he was soon joined by others, Gabriel Pomerand amongst the first, all eager to explore the liberating possibilities unleashed by Lettrism, Isou in the lead.  By the 1960s, Lettrism theory, a marriage of art and typography with the letter as visual symbol, had spread across the entire landscape of culture and the visual arts as Hypergraphics, a refined synthesis of text and other media forms that is now firmly embedded into Western culture. Lettrism, once avante guard,  the cutting edge intellectual and artistic spearhead of the international post-War II youth rebellion, is now mainstream and fully integrated into Western consciousness.

Enzyklopädie des Osiris.
Berlin: Verlag grotesque kunst, 1919.
An example of Dada Quatsch (Pseudodada),  
a parody of Dada utterance and typography.

Lettrism’s roots lie in Dada and Surrealism. Though not his intent, Duchamp's Disques Optiques  is considered an exploration of the letter "O" as the central visual element.


Duchamp, Marcel. Rotorelief. Disques Optiques.
[Paris: Privately published, 1935].

Isou considered his fellow countryman, Tristan Tzara, to be Dada's foremost exponent, yet he believed that by the 1940s, the movement had become stagnant.

Cover to: ILIAZD (Ilia Zdanevitch). [Ledentu as a Beacon].
Paris: Éditions du 41º, 1923.

We also see a foreshadowing of Lettrism in Futurism and the work of Russian Futurist, Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevitch)...

Pages 52 and 53 from: ILIAZD (Ilia Zdanevitch). [Ledentu as a Beacon].
Paris: Éditions du 41º, 1923.

...And in the work of Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero.

DEPERO, Fortunato. Veni VD Vici.
Milano: Verzocchi (V&D), 1924.
Catalog for brick manufacturer V&D.

Lettrism gains traction during the 1950s, and after Isou publishes Le Lettrisme et l'Hypergraphie dans la peinture et la sculpture contemporaines in 1961 Lettrism becomes the dominant visual force of the 1960s and 1970s.

ISOU. Isidore. Le Lettrisme et l'Hypergraphie dans la peinture et la sculpture contemporaines.
Paris: Jean Grassin, 1961.





Lettrism crossed the Atlantic and influenced, amongst others, Ed Ruscha...

RUSCHA, Ed. Honk. 1962.


LICHTENSTEIN, Roy. Masterpiece. 1962.

By the late 1960s, the powerful influence of Lettrism on Pop-Art is seen in the visually stunning psychedelic posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore auditoriums in San Francisco and New York.

Wes Wilson. 1966.


Wes Wilson. 1967.

 Meanwhile, back in France...

LEMAÎTRE, Maurice. Le lettrisme dans le roman et les arts plastiques.
Devant le pop-art et la bande dessinée.
Two-page spread across first two blanks.
Paris: Collection "Lettrisme." 1, 1970.


BROUTIN, Gérard-Philippe, et al. Lettrisme et hypergraphie par Gérard-Philippe Broutin, Jean-Paul Curtay, Jean-Pierre Gillard, François Poyet.
Original gouache and ink by Dany Tayarda.
Paris: Éditions Georges Fall, 1972.



BROUTIN, Gérard-Philippe, et al. Lettrisme et hypergraphie par Gérard-Philippe Broutin, Jean-Paul Curtay, Jean-Pierre Gillard, François Poyet.
Original gouache and ink by Roland Sabatier.
Paris: Éditions Georges Fall, 1972.

LEMAÎTRE, Maurice. Poems et musique lettristes.
Paris: Lettrisme, 1971.

By the 1980s, Lettrism is fully integrated into all media and is a catch-all for any work uniting text, typography, and the visual arts.

KRUGER, Barbara. Your Body Is a Battle Ground. 1989.


DEVAUX, Frédérique (preface). 11 photographies originales de
Michael Amarger, Jean-Paul d'arville, Gérard-Philippe Broutin,
 Françoise Canal, Frédérique Devaux, Albert Dupont, Isidore Isou,
François Poyet, Woodie Roehmer, Roland Sabatier, Alain Satie.
Original photograph with hand-painted interventions by François Poyet.
Paris: Éditions de Cluny, 1990.

When he was only twenty-one years old Isidore Isou planted his flag in the arts, published his manifesto, and, by the time of his death in 2007, had left an indelible stamp upon the world that crystalizes into three simple words:

TEXT IS ART


BROUTIN, Gérard-Philippe, et al. Lettrisme et hypergraphie par Gérard-Philippe Broutin, Jean-Paul Curtay, Jean-Pierre Gillard, François Poyet.
Original gouache and ink by Isidore Isou.
Paris: Éditions Georges Fall, 1972.
__________

With the exception of the Kruger, Ruscha, Lichtenstein, Isou self-portrait and book, all images courtesy of Ars Libri, Ltd., Catalogue 154.
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__________

3 comments:

  1. Interesting, particularly the Wes Wilson poster, since I have a 5' x1' poster of a photograph of a reclining nude, propped up on one elbow and body-painted from toes to armpit, incorporated within which is "46 Annual New York Art Directors Show". In her hand she holds the 'AD' of Albrecht Durer.

    It was bought in the very early 70's (remember the poster adverts on the back cover of Private Eye?). Despite some fairly intensive searching I've never been able to identify who the designer was. If you or any of your knowledgeable readers could point me towards a useful reference book or two I'd be grateful.

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  2. This is an important art movement and you've done it justice. I view the original members as sort of the French "Beat Generation". I also see a Bauhaus influence.

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  3. Isou he is in the hospital with only perhaps one or two decades (three four five... eight?) of his life to live and likes the constant service and comfort of the they was when and the attendants of to him he is medical institution's in his they the service ultimate creator creature comforts push button visit acolyte sacrifice now you have gone home

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