despalles overcomes the distance that still exists between the German and French language areas. Thus the artist's books of the edition are mostly conceived from the outset as bilingual, French and German, or even trilingual. As a rule, they appear as first publications, always with unpublished translations. In them, artists and poets from different aesthetic categories meet.
Robert Schwarz /
Johannes Strugalla
Maizum Goin - Hommage à Antonin Artaud
“One of Despalles’ characteristic books deals with texts of the French author Antonin Artaud, who was more existential than surrealist. Actually a theatre writer, his almost fantastic, acrobatic, and pathetic word constructions refer to the phenomen on of glossolalia, vocal emanations reported in the Holy Bible where at Whitsun people speak ‘in tongues’, a semi-language allowing people from different places to understand each other. Not only was Artaud working on those substitutes for a word-wise language, but Johannes Strugalla for his book would transform letters into fragmentary structures, arrangements to make the vibrating sounds and multiple mixtures of meaning and non-meaning phrases visible. (...) Maizum Goin, (...) contains lithographic pieces by the very important printer and bookmaker Robert Schwarz. His subjects range from very elementary geometrical forms like grids and color fields to complex figural compositions. In Maizum Goin, the pictorial pieces are of the first kind and compose the simple ground forms with highly delicate coloring. Contrasting the vivid type figuration these pictures take, sign by sign, are the functions of the letters as pictures. A somewhat anti-illustrative method builds a platform of authentic correspondence with the word world of Artaud.” Stefan Soltek
Text by Antonin Artaud from the Cahiers du retour à Paris. Lithographic work by Robert Schwarz. Concept and handset typography by Johannes Strugalla.
Bilingual: French, German. First publication in German.
48 pages, different papers, 35 × 25,5 cm. Hardcover. Printed by the artists.
Edition: 99 copies, numbered and signed by the artists. Mainz / Paris, 1989.
Deutsche Erstveröffentlichung. Deutsche Übersetzung Heinz G. Hahs.
Buchdruck, Handsatz, verschiedene Büttenpapiere, 48 Seiten, 35 × 25,5 cm,
Pappband mit von den Künstlern bedrucktem Bezugspapier.
Blockbuchbindung Vitus Münch.
99 numerierte und von den Künstlern signierte Exemplare,
davon die Nummern 1–10 als Vorzugsausgabe, mit Leinenetui und jeweils einer
zusätzlichen Lithographie und einem Typogramm, von den Künstlern signiert
(vergriffen). Mainz, Paris, 1989.
