Jean Dubuffet: Ler dla canpane (1948) [French]

An early work of Dubuffet, written phonetically and illustrated with six linocuts and woodcuts. The author presented it as “le premier texte publié en langue française vivante depuis les Serments de Strasbourg” [the first text published in French as a living language since the Oaths of Strasbourg]. Issued in 150+15 copies.

Publisher Art brut, Paris, 1948
[16] pages, 19 x 13.8 x 0.2 cm
via Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

PDF (16 MB)
JPGs

Rosa B, 5: Environment and Design (2014) [French/English]

“Rosa B 5 deals with relations between the environment and design following the Aspen conference in 1970.

Around 1970, in France and on an international level, in all industrialized countries, the environment became a primordial question. Debates aiming to define principles and ways of approaching the issue gave rise to theoretical and conceptual tension. They crystallized the economic and political problems born of the connection taking shape between modernity and nature. In France in 1968 the Ministère des Affaires Culturelles founded the Institut de l’Environnement, a center for education and research proposing a new approach to teaching urban planning, architecture, design and communication, in response to new challenges intrinsic to a “sensitive environment.”

In 1970, the IDCA (the International Design Conference in Aspen) presented a program called Environment by design. In response to an invitation by the IDCA, the French delegation, led by designer Roger Tallon, took a position through a declaration written by Jean Baudrillard. The French delegation’s declaration, in association with the reactions and demonstrations of students and environmental activists at the conference, marked a turning point for the Aspen meetings.

Issue no. 5 of Rosa B takes the form of an archive, updating historical documents that put current debates on the fabrication of the environment into perspective. With texts and contributions by Peio Aguirre, Martin Beck, Gilles de Bure, Sheila Levrant de Breteville, Monique Eleb, Pierre Lascoumes, Jeanne Quéheillard, and a ‘carte blanche’ to Benjamin Tong with the calarts archives.” (from announcement)

Conceived by Peio Aguirre and Jeanne Quéheillard
Publisher Guadalupe Echevarria & Charlotte Laubard, Bordeaux, 2014

HTML (English, updated on 2017-11-29)
HTML (French, updated on 2017-11-29)

Guy Debord, Asger Jorn: Mémoires (1958–) [French, English]

Mémoires [Memories] is the second of their two collaborative books made by Asger Jorn and Guy Debord whilst they were both members of the Situationist International.

“The pages consist of phrases, photos, drawings and cartoons that Debord cut out of other works, and then pasted up in a randomly suggestive manner. Debord then had Jorn taint these ‘prefabricated elements’ with paint. The colors suggest possible readings of the phrases or simply lend a mood to the images. These plates were then bound in sand-paper to destroy any other books it came into contact with–Debord calls them an anti-book. The book was published at Jorn’s expense and given away as a sumptuous gift to friends.” (adapted from L. Bracken, Guy Debord, 1997, pp 34-35)

The second issue of the book, in slightly different format, appeared in Copenhagen in 1959.

Publisher L’Internationale situationniste, 1958
[64] pages

Commentaries:
Books of Warfare: The Collaboration between Guy Debord & Asger Jorn from 1957-1959 (Christian Nolle, Virose, 2005)
The Making of Fin de Copenhagen & Mémoires (Bart Lans, TU Delft, 2008)
En ukendt og berygtet celebrity? Guy Debord, potlatch og myten om Mémoires (Thomas Hvid Kromann, 2016, Danish)

English translator
Footnotes and sources of detournements (compiled by Ian Thompson, 2015)
Wikipedia

Mémoires (French, 2nd ed., Copenhagen, 1959, 254 MB, added on 2017-10-7 via Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
Mémoires (French, 1993 reprint by Jean-Jacques Pauvert aux Belles Lettres of 1959 Copenhagen edition, low res PDF, 2 MB, via AVANT)
Mémoires (English, facsimile trans. Ian Thompson, 2015, PDF, 16 MB)

See also Fin de Copenhague, 1957.