Multiplied : Edition Mat and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959-1965

In 1959, Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri pioneered an inventive new series of artist-created editioned multiples to be broadly distributed. While artists have long created editioned multiples of artworks—from prints and handmade books to sculptures—Spoerri’s project placed a radical focus on multiplication and movement. His Edition MAT (Multiplication d’art transformable) presented a selection of works by key figures in postwar kinetic and Op art, including an array of artworks that could be manipulated, moved, and altered optically, electrically, or through physical interaction.

Multiplied is the first in-depth English-language study of this seminal project in the history of kinetic and postwar art. The catalog presents the entirety of Edition MAT’s three collections—from 1959, 1964, and 1965—that together consist of forty-nine artworks by thirty-five European, North American, and Latin American artists, including leading figures such as Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Dieter Roth, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Jean Tinguely, alongside lesser-known artists. With three essays, artwork entries, and an appendix of newly translated historical texts, this volume sheds light on under-studied artworks as well as the body of critical thought connecting art, commerce, and display in the postwar period.

Meredith Malone is associate curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis. She has curated numerous exhibitions and is the author of Chance Aesthetics.