Asger Jorn, Guy Debord: Fin de Copenhague (1957)

“Fin de Copenhague [Goodbye to Copenhagen] is the first collaboration between Asger Jorn and Guy Debord. The book is credited to Jorn, with Debord listed as “Technical Adviser in Détournement”.

The pages include text in English, French, German, and Danish; illustrations of whisky bottles beer bottles and cigarettes; aeroplanes and ocean going liners; cartoons of well dressed men and pretty girls and various maps of Copenhagen. Each page is covered with a second layer of coloured ink drops and drips, most of which go right to left, emphasising the direction of the book from beginning to end.

The book was published by Jorn’s Edition Bauhaus Imaginiste in May 1957, a few months before this group amalgamated with the Lettrist International to create the Situationists.”

Publisher Edition Bauhaus Imaginiste, May 1957
Printer Permild and Rosengreen, Copenhagen
40 pages
via Maldoror Press

Commentary: Christian Nolle (Virose, 2005), Bart Lans (TU Delft, 2008).

Wikipedia

PDF (5 MB)

See also Mémoires, 1958.

Allan Sekula: Fish Story (1995/2002)

“The Fish Story project focuses on the quest for centers of maritime power past and present and the political interest in the change in the economic infrastructure of industrial ports yielded by late-capitalist rule in its phase of multinational and global expansion. This is the third project of the American photographer and historian Allan Sekula (b. 1951) in his cycle on the imaginary and real geography of the advanced capitalist world.

Working on the assumption that photography remains inevitably tied to ideological and real historical factors, Allan Sekula is continuing the tradition of critical realism. However, far from confining himself to illuminating the subject solely with photographic means, Sekula has been integrating the written word in his creative work since the Seventies. Consequently, Fish Story has been conceived from the outset as a book and as an exhibition. The photographs shown in this publication illustrate working conditions on highly industrialized container ships and in ports, while the texts yield insights masked by the visual, photographic information. The resultant montage of images and texts encourages dialogue with the viewer.”

With a text by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh.

Publisher Richter, Düsseldorf, 1995
Second edition, revised, 2002
ISBN 3933807689
206 pages

Publisher

PDF (removed on 2023-3-30 by request of the estate)

A Bestiary of Spam Characters (2013)

Booklet resulting from the workshop “Spam Publishing” held by André Castro and Silvio Lorusso at Transmediale 2013, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

Contributions by Laia Balasch, Yoana Buzova, Lasse Christensen, Lukas Grundmann, Joseph Knierzinger, Matthias Hurtl, Rosa Menkman, Roelof Roscam Abbing, Inga Schlömer, Vivian Schlömer, Nan Wang.

Publisher Spam Publishing Editions, February 2013
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License
ISBN 9781300692324
40 pages
via Andre Castro

workshop report
lulu.com

PDF