Image : Groupe Recherche d'art Visuel Issue 6

Book. 265 x 210 mm, 36 pp. in printed stapled wraps. Winter/Spring 1966. Front cover image in colour, contents illustrated with both colour and b/w images. Three issues of Image (usually a 'careers' magazine for young graduates) were effectively taken over by important Cambridge academics of the day, all with a specific interest in concrete poetry and kinetic art: Philip Steadman, Stephen Bann and Reg Gadney. The issues of Image dedicated to kinetic and concrete poetry were particularly noteworthy for their commitment to translation and reprinting 'lost' texts, an imaginative use of layout and photography, and enlightening academic essays on their given subjects. Symbiotic of its artistic agenda, this issue brings together a comprehensive, edited selection of the writings of the Groupe Recherche d'art Visuel (Paris, 1960-65) - many of which had hitherto never been published in translation, and the majority of which were first published in ephemeral catalogues or leaflets. Edited and translated by Stephen Bann and Reg Gadney, their introduction to the manifesto-texts of the Groupe Recherche d'art Visuel reads: 'These writings are not a prescription for kinetic art, nor are they sufficient to define the position of the GRAV on the modern scene. They are the product of a radical reappraisal of the relationship between artist, work and spectator and as such they have a unique interest.' From 1960 is a text declaring the aims of the GRAV, entitled 'Act of Foundation'; from 1961: a statement made by GRAV on the occasion of an exhibition of kinetic art at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm ('We prefer to consider the artistic phenomenon as an exclusively visual experience on the level of physiology rather than of emotion'); from September 1961: a secondary manifesto entitled 'Enough of Mystification', from 1962: extracts from 'Individual Declarations' by the artists of GRAV; from 1962/3: an extract from a text by Le Parc, entitled 'On the Subject of Art-Spectacle', and a text distributed for the opening of the 3rd Paris Biennale in October 1963; also from 1963, a text entitled ''Instability'-The Labyrith' and a talk by Le Parc at Rimini Congress. A series of questionnaires, from Bann, Gadney and Ohio University, conducted in 1965 (and translated by Annette Kobak), is also included. This issue also features an essay by the art historian and Image contributing editor, Stephen Bann, entitled 'Kinetic Art and Poetry' (a particular attention is given to Ian Hamilton Finlay's kinetic poetry); together with a text by Frank Popper entitled 'Mueller's Machine 'M'', examining the work by Hans-Walter Mueller Machine M, that was shown at the Fourth Biennale of Paris, as well as photographs of Edina Ronay, young actress-daughter of Hungarian gourmet, Egon Ronay. Rare, our last copy. Condition: light wear to front cover, light soiling to left edge of cover and crease to bottom corner, internally fine. Overall: Very good+.…