Carrion, Ulises

Looking for Poetry/ Tras la Poesia

ISBN: 0859984001
Devon, UK: Beau Geste Press, 1973. First Edition. Softcover. "hypotenuses | hipotenusas." (excerpt, Ulises Carrión, unpaginated) Looking for Poetry/Tras la Poesía is a bilingual abstract book of poems by Mexican conceptual artist Ulises Carrión (1941-1989) published by avant-garde imprint Beau Geste Press in 1973. It belongs to the 1972–73 run of language-operation books that come right after Carrión renounced literature. Born in 1941, he studied literature and philosophy in Mexico City and was, by the mid-sixties, being groomed as the next major Mexican fiction writer. He left Mexico around 1970 for further study in Europe, and by 1972 had settled in Amsterdam, in part because life there was easier for a gay man than in Mexico at the time. He kept expanding outward from literature with mail art, performance, film & video, sound work and co-founding the Vereniging van Videokunstenaars in 1983, later re-named Time Based Arts. Carrión's connection to Beau Geste Press was short and consequential. The British Beau Geste Press was founded by Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion in 1970 as a live-in commune rather than a business, often saying "Beau Geste Press is not a business. It's a way of life." The press published exactly two of Carrión's books, both in 1973; Arguments in the fall and this title in the winter. The hands-on printing experience Carrión received at Beau Geste Press changed him from a writer who commissioned books into an artist who made them. Due to a certain cult of the overlooked and underestimated post-1960s avant-garde, Carrión has undergone an extraordinary appreciation in the 21st century. Exhibitions of his works and a flood of references to his artistic strategies and theories appear in current art works, essays, and conferences. For more from Beau Geste Press please see Item No.s 8824, 8882 & 9334 et al. 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 bilingual marvel. Small-format Softcover Original: First Edition, first printing though neither explicated as such at copyright page. A most collectible small-press hand-printed book of poems in its rarest contemporary form with relevant association & very distinguished provenance. In relatively fine condition with mild age-toning & rubbing to fine edges of front, back covers & spine; moderate-to-substantial spot-staining to same; very mild vertical creasing at fine edge of front cover at spine; one very small, black ink spot near bottom fine edge of back cover, over the second "e" in "GESTE;" one faint quarter inch pen strike down first half of side text block, near bottom corner; mild rubbing to same. Interior fine with very mild age-toning to page leaves. Fine. [Item #9336]

Price: $600.00