Dero Abecedarius! (2001)

Dero Abecedarius! (2001)
Klaus Peter Dencker
Loose folios in heavy card box, title on card pasted on front box cover. H298 x W210 mm. 34 folios. Inkjet on BFK Rives 210 gram. Edition of 50, of which this is #30. Acquired from Red Fox Press, 3 January 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Visual poems in an ABC sequence and inspired by the Statue of Liberty. Klaus Peter Dencker belongs in the vast company of notable visual poets and “alphabet-etishists”, too many to list here, but within the Books On Books Collection, there are Jim Avignon & Anja Lutz, Jim Clinefelter, Martín Gubbins, Bernard Heidsieck, Karl Kempton and Sam Winston, all of whom offer fruitful comparisons.

Detail from B folio

Artist’s statement: I started the work on “Dero Abecedarius” in the mid of July 2001. The work should have two principles of order: the sequence of the pages should follow the normal ABC, and the basic theme should be the Statue of Liberty which I am collecting since many years. This subject is a public-relation one in many variations, so that I could work on the idea of freedom especially with these partly absurd copies of our consumer society, to question it poetically and theoretically.

There exist three structures: 1. A-C, D-F, G-I, J-L, M, N-R, S-U, V-Z; 2. A-C, D-F, G-I, J-L, M, N-R, S-T, U-Y, Z; 3. A-C, D-F, G-I, J-L, M, N-P, O-R, S-T, V-Y, Z on four levels: black/poetic, green/poetry, blue/ABC, red/autobiographically.

Within this work are personal experiences of many visits to the USA and the absurd idea, that a letter has its own meaning/importance. The ABC as an own sign-world and as an example for the dealing with seeming/apparent unliberties and so called rules. I work on the sequences usually by making first all collages on the pages, then the text-elements and finally a follow-up of a few corrections in the existing collages. The work should have had 28 pages and was done for an exhibition in the Buch- und Schriftmuseum Museum of the Deutsche Bibliothek Leipzig with the opening on the 8th of November 2001. On the 11th of September all collages on the pages were done and also some pages with text-elements. Looking back that particular day over my work I noticed some elements which I can`t explain: I saw some disturbing connections. So on pages F, M, O and Z. I added after the 11th of September some new elements only in the existing collages of page R and Y, and I added the last two pages after Z. So that now the work has 32 pages as a consequence of 11 September and was finished on the 21st of October 2001.

Although Dencker refers to 32 pages, there are 34. They consist of 1 cover, 1 English preface (typeset), 1 German preface (handwritten), 26 letter folios, 1 entitled Noch zwei fündstucke (“Two more findings”), 2 modified collages of R and Y, 1 entitled “Art sheet”, 1 colophon.

Redfoxpress (founded by Francis Van Maele) is one of the more active and important publishers and distributors of artists’ books in the post-Fluxus tradition since 2000 to the present.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Jim Avignon & Anja Lutz“. 29 October 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Jim Clinefelter“. 17 July 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Martín Gubbins“. 9 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Bernard Heidsieck“. 29 October 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Karl Kempton “. 29 October 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Sam Winston“. 17 September 2018. Books On Books Collection.

“J. Meejin Yoon“. 12 January 2017. Books On Books Collection.

Bean, Victoria, Kenneth Goldsmith and Chris McCabe. 2015. The New Concrete : Visual Poetry in the 21st Century. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing.

Dencker, Klaus Peter. 2000. “From Concrete to Visual Poetry, with a Glance into the Electronic Future“. Trans. Harry Polkinhorn. Kaldron On-Line.

Sackner, Martin and Ruth. 2015. The Art of Typewriting : 570+ Illustrations. 2015. London: Thames & Hudson. P. 234.