OTHER BOOKS AND SO, bookseller.

Autumn ‘75 [Catalogue No. 1].

[44] pp. 8vo (210 x 140 mm.), green printed & stamped wrappers, lower wrapper with illus., staple-bound. [Amsterdam: 1975].

A very nice copy of the scarce first catalogue issued by Ulises Carrión’s fabled Other Books and So bookstore/gallery space. Distributed several months after the shop’s founding, this catalogue lists several hundred “other books / non books / anti books / pseudo books / quasi books / concrete books / conceptual books / structural books / project books / plain books / multiples / posters / postcards / records / cassettes.” It offers for sale books and bookworks by Beuys, Bochner, Downsbrough, Finlay, Gibbs, Richard Hamilton, Marlene Kos, Kostelanetz, Kosuth, LeWitt, Merz, Messager, Nannucci, Paolozzi, Phillips, Roth, Ruscha, Shiomi, Stokes, Valoch, E. Williams, etc.

When explaining what kind of books he sought to fill his store, Carrión writes, “In March 1975, three weeks before opening Other Books and So, I sent more than one thousand letters asking artists, writers and publishers to send books. I didn’t include any precise definition of the works I was interested in. I only said I wanted ‘the sort of books that you make.’ A few days later packages started arriving from North America and South America, from Western and Eastern Europe, from Japan and from Australia…For an artist’s book to be a bookwork it’s essential that it looks and functions like an ordinary book. That means no unusual size, no extravagant materials, no eccentric content.”–“Other Books” in U. Carrión, Quant aux Livres (2008), pp. 191-92.

An invaluable bibliographical resource for the early dissemination of artists’ books in Europe. In fine condition, the upper wrapper bears the stamp of Guy Schraenen’s “Small Press Festival, June 76.” With a blank order form laid-in.

❧ “Specializing in artists’ books and multiples, [Other Books and So] was also an artist-run exhibition and event space that distributed the kind of work [Carrión] wanted to see more of in the world: books conceived of as a whole, rather than ‘texts’ bestowed by the author on a publisher for dissemination to a reading public. In an advertisement for the space, he called them ‘non books, anti books, pseudo books, quasi books, concrete books, visual books, conceptual books, structural books, project books, statement books, instruction books,’ a list suggestive of his vexed relationship with the marketplace.”–A. Borsuk, The Book (2018), p. 141.

Price: $1,500.00

Item ID: 9731