Ehrenberg, Felipe

Flechas

Devon, U.K. Beau Geste Press, 1972. First Edition. Softcover. "thoughts curl up | thoughts curl down | intuition curles up | thought feeds intuition | intuition sustain thought" (final page). Flechas or Señas y Señales: La flecha y sus usos (Signs and Signals: The Arrow and its Uses) is an abstract poem written & illustrated by Mexican artist Felipe Ehrenberg (1943-2017), self published through his avant-garde imprint Beau Geste Press. Ehrenberg left Mexico with his family after the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968 and settled in Devon, U.K. With Martha Hellion he co-founded Beau Geste Press, a live-in commune rather than a business, and were known to claim: "Beau Geste Press is not a business. It's a way of life." They published roughly 75 books from visual poets, conceptualists, neo-Dadaists, and the Fluxus circle (See our Fluxus catalog, Item No. 8824) that were often mimeographed, offset and hand-assembled with cheap materials. Ehrenberg called himself a "neologista" rather than a conceptualist, and described the job as: an artist, a chronicler, a professor, a politician, a diplomat, an editor, an actor, an organizer, and a tireless traveler. Ehrenberg was not a visual poet in the concrete-poetry sense, he didn't work primarily in the letterform-on-the-page tradition. He was the great publisher of visual poets, and his own poetics run through systems rather than typography. He called himself a "neologista" precisely to dodge the existing labels, making Flechas a true rarity. Upon his return to Mexico he co-founded Grupo Proceso Pentágono, the seed of el Movimiento de los grupos, the collective-practice wave that defined Mexican political art in the seventies, and he is credited as one of the leading figures in the Mexican mimeograph movement. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed mate in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England for founder Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), J.G. Ballard (1930-2009) et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our Item No.s 8217 & 8366). After prevailing against censorious harassment efforts, Unicorn closed & Butler died in short order. Cupidi went on to found the Public House Bookshop in Brighton, which had a long & successful run but is also now closed, & he still resides there. We have been honored to obtain what Cupidi has termed "The Last Hurrah," all the remaining gems of Unicorn & Public House, including this delicate dart. Small-format Softcover Original: First Edition, first printing though neither explicated as such at copyright page. A very collectible small-press, hand-printed Mimeograph Revolution-era uniquity in its rarest contemporary form with relevant & very distinguished provenance. In relatively fine-to-very fine condition with mild wear/rubbing mostly to fine edges of front, back covers & spine; mild bumping/creasing to corners of same; an occasion of very mild-spot-staining at bottom right corner of front cover; mild age-toning to text block; mild spot-staining to top of same. Interior fine-to-very fine with mild age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of page leaves; very mild occasions of spot-staining to top fine edge of some of same. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #9332]

Price: $125.00