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):
http://www.asideofbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ballbok.mp3
Binding.
Arced spread of Karawane showing boards.
Straight accordion fold shot …
First three panels
Middle 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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