BEN VAUTIER, Mon admiration pour votre Oeuvre, 1966 / Nice, le 13 Mars
21,5 x 16,5 cm
letterpress print on firm paper
Fluxus announcement / event with an artist statement in French
dated in print: ’13 March, 1966′
Part of the text reads roughly in French: Dear
I would like to express my admiration for your work.
Since Dada in 1920,
the ready-made of Duchamp
the supertemporal of Isou
and the indeterminacy of Cage
and since all that I have taken possession of
is art everywhere:
to wait for someone
to listen to a fly
to move the left arm
to draw a 1 cm line every day.
So the smallest detail, or even the title of the greatest, contains art.
All old conditions for harmony, work, quality, aesthetics have been wiped out.
Everything is art, and it is within the framework of this really everything that you knew how to insert it into your oeuvre.
…..
BEN VAUTIER / LA MONTE YOUNG, text, stencil on paper, 1960-1966
26,8 x 21,1 cm
edition unknown
published by Ben Vautier
This publication is apparently part of the newsletters Ben Vautier sent out in the sixties. First there is an introduction by Ben on contemporary music being influenced by music from other cultures. He pleads with the reader to extend of what music should be by creating music with constructions, themes or melodies. Hence the title of this stencil A sole note will do.
In the second part he presents “Composition 1960 #7” by La Monte Young and in the last part Ben Vautier presents a similar composition called “Crescendo” from July 1963.
ERIC ANDERSEN, Opus 36, n.d. [ca 1965]
13,5 x 19,4 cm
text, selfpublished stencil
edition unknown
Collection Kees van Gelder, Amsterdam
inv.EAnd 927
text: Write two exactly identical envelopes to me and place with tape the right amount in coins instead of stamps. Then put the one into the other and send the letter to me. If I get the letter I will maybe be able to see the exact difference between these two envelopes, and, maybe I will have a useful relationship. And maybe I will be a clever boy. And I will be a happy boy.
eric andersen, vangede bygade 9, gentofte, copenhagen.
BEN PATTERSON, Solo, 1965
each 28 x 21 cm and 21 x 21 cm
6 parts
offset on various kinds of paper, board
texts in German and English
signed, numbered
edition ca 500
WILLEM DE RIDDER, Fluxus – nieuw!! niet gratis maar 70 ct – 10Bfr [newspaper], 1965
tabloid size
Fluxus newspaper, Amsterdam
verso:
Various shots of Dorothea Meijer seated amidst the Mail-Order Warehouse items if the Fluxshop in the home of Willem de Ridder in Amsterdam during the winter 1964 – 1965
Signals, 1964 – 1966
tabloid size, 8 issues
offset, newspapers
1st print, vintage, extremely rare
issues 2, 3-4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 (issues number 1 and 5 are lacking)
splendid condition
€ 2.000,- plus € 32,- Track & Trace registered mail
A near complete run of 9 magazines of the legendary 60’s publication Signals.
Published under the direction of Paul Keeler and artist David Medalla to promote international art, i.e. European, Latin, Central and South American artists represented by the Signals Gallery in London, but which also dealt with a wide array of artistic and aesthetic issues of the avant- garde of the 1960’s, with excerpts from writings and texts by numerous noted artists and critics, profusely illustrated throughout showing artworks, cultural figures.
Initiator David Medalla next to one of his bubbling machines, London, 1964
This cutting-edge journal documented exhibitions at the Signals showroom in London, and includes images, poems, critical essays, scientific digests, photographs and experimental art news. Basically documenting exhibitions and events in Britain and abroad, Signals brought together leading innovative artists, writers and poets of the time and, in addition, established a context for kinetic, time-based, performance and environmental art. Artists featured in these original magazines include Jesús Rafael Soto, Takis, Lygia Clark with screen print couver, Sergio de Camargo, Carlos Cruz-Díaz, Eduardo Chillida and Marcela Salvadori and many others. There are 10 issues and 9 magazines in total, as numbers 3 and 4 are combined into a twin issue. Here lacking original magazines numbers 1 and 5.
Ref. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/author/medalla-david/
Ref. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?an=medalla%20david&bsi=30&sortby=20&prevpage=1
History of prices:
Zwiggelaar Auctions, Amsterdam € 2.400,- 5 December 2025 (complete set, hammer price)
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 650.- January 2021 Nr 7 (Lygia Clark)
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK € 7.200,- July 2019 (complete set)
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 300.- July 2019 Nr 2
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 165.- July 2019 Nr 3-4
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 275.- July 2019 Nr 5
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 325.- July 2019 Nr 6
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 525.- July 2019 Nr 7 (Lygia Clark)
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 350.- July 2019 Nr 8
William Allen Word & Image, London, UK GBP 600.- July 2019 Nr 9
Largine, Madrid, Spain GBP 288.- August 2019 Nr 2
Related extra information
Reprint available.
A reprint of the complete run is available at Iniva, 164 pp., unbound in slipcase, 35cm (height), approx 300 illustrations. This facsimile edition reprinted and published by Iniva, 1995. The cutting edge journal brought together leading innovative artists, writers and poets of the time and established a context for kinetic, time-based, performance and environmental art.
Artists featured in the original and reproduced in the facsimile edition include Jesús Rafael Soto, Takis, Lygia Clark, Sergio de Camargo, Carlos Cruz-Díaz, Eduardo Chillida and Marcela Salvadori, and many others. The facsimile edition comprises volumes one and two of 11 issues and comes with a comprehensive index.
M.C. ESCHER, Icosaëder [Icosahedron], 1963
12,5 x 12,5 x 12,5 cm
printed tin box with embossed relief
edition 7100
published by Verblifa / Vereenigde Blikfabrieken, Krommenie; on behalf of its 75th anniversary
not available
Originally M.C. Escher was not interested in a commission to make a tin box. Nevertheless a delegation of Verblifa convinced the artist eventually by showing a box called Koh-I-Noor once designed in 1955 for the Verkade chocolate factory, i.e. a Icosahedron, a geometrical shape with twenty sides. He got fascinated by this object and invented a way for having the box industrially produced by Verblifa.
The tin was produced in an edition of 6.800 and an additional 300 tins were produced to replace any defects.
Drawing of the invention for the production of the box by M.C. Escher displaying lid, hull and bottom.
Employees during the production of the icosahedron shaped tin boxes in Krommenie 1963.
History of prices.
Venduehuis, The Hague, Netherlands € 2.800,- 29 April 2021 (hammer price)
Auction house Christie’s, Amsterdam € 395,- / US$ 456.- / Dfl. 865,- December 1998
Auction house Vendue Huis, Den Haag € 800,- / US$ 1,060.- August 2013
New Art Editions US$ 1,425.- / € 1.075,- September 2014
BEN VAUTIER, Mensonges [tr. lies], ca 1962 – 1963
21,4 x 16,5 cm
ink stamp and stencil print on paper
published by the artist
inv.BVau 1013
This is a list of works with dates of creation, apparently meant as lies. The title of the works refer to an exhibition that took place in Vautier’s Fluxus shop ‘La cédille qui sourit’ in Nice, France.
KEN FRIEDMAN, This is really it! This is really it! This is?, ca 1962-1968
27,9 x 21,6 cm / 19,7 x 15,3 cm
prints on paper, folded as issued, petrified rubber band
3 parts from unknown source
inv.KFrie 1012
This is an unknown publication, probably connected to one of the “Fourre-Tout” publications produced by Ben Vautier in the sixties. An edition of 101 copies composed of two parts, i.e. a bocal and an envelope with artist’s contributions. For sale at Ben Vautier’s Fluxus shop ‘La Çedille qui rit’ in Nice, France. The theme of this issue “Fourre-Tout” (tr. mishmash) was apparently about “Realism”, although this is not explicitly outspoken in the accompanying text by ben Vautier.
BEN VAUTIER, Crisis and Nervous Depression, ca 1962-1963
11,4 x 10,1 cm / 4.6 x 3.9 inches
Fluxus announcement of event (to be filled in), black letterpress on thin paper
edition unknown
published by Total Art Gallery, Nice, France
condition: aged
rare
€ 385,- plus € 18,- Track & Trace registered mail
inv.BVau 1014
This statement of Ben Vautier is printed on very thin paper and a good example of his self-mockery he so often showed in his works: Ben, is so much of a true failure and a shabby fool, crying to be great, that he has had enough of it all.
A copy of this item is in the collection of the Walker Art Center in New York, USA and in the collection of Fondazione Bonotto, Colceresa, Italy.
Initiator David Medalla next to one of his bubbling machines, London, 1964
