Jan 292019
 

With great excitement, we prepare to leave for California for both the CODEX Symposium and the 2019 CA ABAA Book Fair. Our fair list is finished and posted for your viewing and/or preparation pleasure.

We will be debuting a significant number of new works, notably by Timothy Ely, Helen Heibert, Carolyn Trant, and others.

If you are unable to attend…or just love booth tour videos…we will be posting our CA booth tour as soon as it is set up on our channel (with the others).

We have passes available as needed and, as always, let us know if and when we can be of assistance.

Oct 262016
 

As promised, here is a selection of materials we are bringing to Boston, much of which is recent acquisitions and new items.  Content is arranged by sections: Primary Source [Archive] Collections; Artist’s Books & Fine Press; Science, Technology, and Historical Medicine; Ephemera; and Esoterica. The catalogs, including the previously released OCCULT short list can be found here: Boston preview list(s)

If you would like to contact about any of the items in advance of the fair, please do so: ian@luxmentis.com, kim@luxmentis.com

Otherwise, we will see you on Friday, October 28th, 5:00-9:00pm!  We have passes for the Friday night preview night, if you would like to attend, please get in touch.

Apr 202016
 
The book in its wonderful camel on wheels home #dada

The book in its wonderful camel on wheels home #dada

In honor of the 100th birthday of the emergence of the Dada movement, we are sharing the unique artist book created by Rolf Lock embodying Hugo Ball’s Karawane. In full leather boards, the exquisite hand illustration and lettering was executed on sandpaper…because…it was. It is housed, as one would expect, in an olive wood camel, the book at rest forming its hump…because…it is.

The text of the Ball’s poem, written in 1916, is as follows:

jolifanto bambla o falli bambla
großiga m’pfa habla horem
egiga goramen
higo bloiko russula huju
hollaka hollala
anlogo bung
blago bung blago bung
bosso fataka
ü üü ü
schampa wulla wussa olobo
hej tatta gorem
eschige zunbada
wulubu ssubudu uluwu ssubudu
–umf
kusa gauma
ba–umf

Having given it a good read or two, please enjoy the following, Christian Bök wonderful reading of the poem (I believe, at Penn):

Binding.

Binding.

Arced spread of Karawane showing boards.

Arced spread of Karawane showing boards.

Straight accordion fold shot ...

Straight accordion fold shot …

First three panels

First three panels

Middle three panels

Middle three panels

Last three panels

Last three panels [All photo credit goes to the very talented Mary Pennington]

Finally, our description, for those so inclined:

Ball, Hugo [poet]; Lock, Rolf [artist]. Karawane [The Caravan]. Wonderful unusual book object of calligraphers and graduate designer Rolf Lock. Germany: Rolf Lock, 1916 [nd, circa 1990]. Unique. Bright and unmarred. Full burgundy leather binding with leather inlays and painted elements, textblock on sandpaper, aeg; housed in burl wood camel. 9.5×9.5cm. np. Illus. (hand colored). Signed by the artist. Fine in Fine Art Object. Hardcover.

Accordion fold of sandpaper in a handmade full leather binding by Ingela Dieric (rust-red oasis goatskin leather with polychrome inlay, hand gilding and aeg. The text of Hugo Ball poem in serpentine lines of equal calligraphy the track of a caravan and ornamented with hand-painted motifs desert. Housed in a handmade wooden camel on wheels of burl wood.

“In 1916, Hugo Ball created the Dada Manifesto, making a political statement about his views on the terrible state of society and acknowledging his dislike for philosophies in the past claiming to possess the ultimate Truth. The same year as the Manifesto, in 1916, Ball wrote his poem “Karawane,” which is a poem consisting of nonsensical words. The meaning however resides in its meaninglessness, reflecting the chief principle behind Dadaism.”

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