THEK, PAUL (1933 - 1988)/ KLEIN, EDWIN (1946)
THEK, PAUL (1933 - 1988)/ KLEIN, EDWIN (1946)
A Document made by Paul Thek and Edwin Klein. 1969 [sold-verkocht]
THEK, PAUL (1933 - 1988)/ KLEIN, EDWIN (1946)
A Document made by Paul Thek and Edwin Klein. With photos by Wim Davits, Edwin Klein, Tom Lenders, Max Natkiel, Jean-Paul Vroom. Published by Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and Moderna Museet, Stockholm during the Amsterdam exhibition of Paul Thek, May 1969.
Stedelijk Museum/Moderna Museet, Amsterdam/Stockholm. February 1969. First edition. Big format paperback (softcover) with 1/3 vertical stiff white wrappers with letterpress-title. 130 pp. 30½ x 41 x 1 cm. 966 gr. With black-and-white photos by Wim Davits, Edwin Klein, Tom Lenders, Max Natkiel and Jean-Paul Vroom. A Document Made By Paul Thek and Edwin Klein is an immensely important collaborative work was created in 1969 by the American artist Paul Thek (1933-1988) and the Dutch photographer and designer Edwin Klein (1946-) for the Pauk Thek and the Artist's Co-op installations at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Moderne Museet, Stockholm. Thek's wish was to turn his diary into artworks: three-dimensional albums, each double page a full-bleed photograph shot from above of a still life of pictures, drawings, books, postcards, magazine clippings, objects (ashtrays, wine bottles, rope, garments, plaster mushrooms, and various other detritus from Thek's studio), the artist's themselves, photographs by friends and colleagues, all printed at 100% scale of the original newspaper sheets that provide the backdrop throughout the entire book. Manipulated by Thek and Klein, the pictures and the objects change from one page spread to the next, all in constant movement, capturing the personal and magical nature of Thek's work and the spontaneous and joyous nature of Thek's collaborations with Klein. 'The document follows my concept of what a book should be like, and Paul's wish to turn his diary into a kind of catalogue - a three-dimensional album, each double page a photograph of a still life with pictures, drawings, books, cards, and objects... The book has the dimensions of an open newspaper, actual size. Turning the pages of the document, one turns the pages of a diary. The pictures and the objects placed on the newspaper keep changing and seem to be in constant movement. Most of the photographs are from the studio, documenting works in progress created for the Stedelijk Museum exhibition. There are pictures from other exhibitions, porno magazines, whatever was lying around, everything that surrounded us in our daily life.' - Edwin Klein Paul Thek and Edwin Klein's book A Document published in May of 1969 during an exhibition of Thek's work at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, is part collage, part diary, part performance, part animation, part documentation of artistic processes, part scrapbook, and part time capsule. Collaborating with the Dutch artist Edwin Klein, Thek wished to turn his diary into a catalog presumably for his exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Klein's idea was to create something of a three-dimensional album of still life pictures by photographing Thek's material laid over newsprint and manipulating the objects - animation style - introducing the sense of movement from page to page. A Document starts off with an issue of Time Magazine dated November 22, 1968 upon which photographs, magazine clippings and postcards have been paper clipped to the cover. As the pages turn, the "collage" of two dimensional images clipped to the magazine's interior spreads get infiltrated with three dimensional objects; a shoelace, a glass jar, a ceramic plate, a mirror (within which Klein is reflected), a box of matches, rolls of tape. In later spreads, the book's chaotic nature gets turned up a few notches as hands introduce bottles of apple juice and champagne which eventually get entangled with lengths of rope that seem to come from behind the camera. To make it all the more time bending and performance-like, polaroids of the behind the scenes making of A Document start to show up later on the pages of the document itself. All of this is juxtaposed with the open newspaper stories, cartoons and puzzles. In the three last pages, the whole assemblage transforms in an instant to an ashtray filled with spent cigarettes and ash, which "wanders" off the page to the right. Religion, art, the body, sex, nature and man's manipulation of nature, time, psychedelics, and other “themes” are referenced in A Document, but through an inventively playful (and often humorous) process. Small portion of paper to edge of first page missing (approx. 3 x 1 cms.), small tear in the middle of the stiff white front wrapper + two pages. Fold in the stiff white front wrapper. Blotchy and discoloration to the cover, little donkey ears. A little worn copy. In good condition. This is an incredibly rare artists book.
Booknumber: 21019
VERKOCHT! SOLD!