A Propos “Le Livre” (d’après Stéphane Mallarmé).
Granary Books & ed.it, 2002. Item #GB_113
9 1/2 x 12 1/2 in., 11 pp., unbound sheets paper chemise and slipcase.
In this meditation on Mallarmé’s great unfinished work, Le Livre, Ian Tyson enters into a conversation with the enigmatic French Symbolist poet about their shared obsession with the inherent resistance and invitation of the white page as the space of documentation. Introducing writing, typography, and geography to the surfaces, Tyson, in spiritual correspondence with Mallarmé, flirts with the very excess of vision that the page’s untamed space encourages. Tyson’s visual consideration and extension of Mallarmé’s project surrounds the act of reading, disrupting this everyday act and notifying the reader/viewer that the book is a site for a continuous reinvention. Tyson clarifies and, by turns, recasts Mallarmé’s meanings through a visual translation machine both explicating and obfuscating language, subtracting meaning, and compounding it. Tyson’s keenly intelligent and spare images answer Mallarmé’s call to a radical re/vision of the page while continuing to be, first and foremost, unmistakably Tyson’s own achievement.
Text and images silk-screened on Somerset 250 gsm ecru paper at Eric Linard Editions, La Garde Adhemar, France. The volume consists of two sections in a black paper chemise and slipcase: the first is an unbound, single signature of text; the second is a suite of six silk-screened images on individual leaves, all signed by Ian Tyson. This is from an edition of 30 copies, of which 15 are for Granary Books and 15 are for ed.it; each signed. Out-of-print.
Pictured: cover; pp. 4–5; 6–7; and two prints.
Out of Stock