artists’ editions : forthcoming

In this project, the artist Susanna Fritscher reaches beyond the notions of illustration and storytelling to create an open, no-holds-barred encounter between her work and that of the feminist poet Ingeborg Bachmann. The starting point is the fathomless depths and voluble uplift that permeate Bachmann’s writing and thoughts, a major influence for the artist. Here, that constant tension is transformed into a physical gesture, a material relationship, that crystallizes it and brings it into view.

This edition compiles a 12-poem book by Ingeborg Bachmann and two texts: her first Frankfurt Lecture and Journal, a never-before published work translated into French by Michel Métayer. Includes a work by Susanna Fritscher. This edition will be produced in 30 singular copies.

The poet and the artist come together around a theme: music and everything about it that’s ineffable.
A never-before-published text by Patrick Quillier and original works by the Nice-based artist Alexandre Capan consider music from the perspective of Vladimir Jankélévitch’s je ne sais quoi et presque rien.
The figure of Vladimir Jankélévitch permeates the entire text, serving as the point of contact between the two authors’ imaginations.
Le Hautbois de Delphes appears like a musical work that backons all the senses to address the question of time and its undertones.

The original idea for this project arose from meeting the master bookbinder Louise Bescond and seeing her inimitable technique and know-how as well as her creative talent and artistic hallmark. Normally, an artisan’s unique know-how becomes apparent at the end of the production process. Here, it’s at the beginning. 
From this encounter were born twin desires: to create an artist’s edition for which the artist herself would be the bookbinder, thus exploring the connection between artisan and artist; and to make this book an art object that would showcase the know-how of every specialized craft required to create and produce a collectible artist’s edition.
The project’s common thread is gesture, or rather the artisan’s gesture(s) behind the physical book, and what makes books one of the ultimate spaces of freedom today.