Ben Vautier Collection. This item is unavailable.Ben Vautier Collection

A collection of works by Fluxus artist Ben Vautier—often known simply as "Ben"—including an incomplete numbered edition of Fourre Tout No. 2 ["Catchall" No. 2], an assembly of texts and objects by various artists, published in 1967 by Ben and Annie Vautier. Includes two copies of the Fourre Tout No. 2 inventory list, one numbered 124 of the original edition of 250 and one out of series. Edited by Ben and Annie Vautier, Fourre Tout No. 2 was a collective artists’ publication that took the form of printed matter and objects housed in a plastic bag. With contributions by Fluxus and avant-garde artists including Takehisa Kosugi, Daniel Spoerri, George Brecht, Ben, and Diter Rot [Dieter Roth], Fourre Tout No. 2 was reminiscent of Fluxus’s other editioned anthology works like their Fluxkits and various other boxed multiples. Self-contained assemblage works of the late 1950s–1960s such as Fourre Tout No. 2, Brecht’s The Case, and the Swedish Boulevardkartongen Tvångsblandaren echoed the conceptualism of Marcel Duchamp’s Green Box and Box in a Valise. These later works thus demonstrate an important link between pre- and postwar avant-gardes. This collection includes more than half of the nearly seventy individual pieces comprising Fourre Tout No. 2. (Because the inventory lists the itemized contents "plus texts, articles, investigations, and critiques by the same authors and others," it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of pieces in a complete edition.) Lacks the original plastic bag used to house the materials. The collection also includes other original Ben works from the 1960s, including the letterpress poster Absence d’Art = Art, an early example of the artist’s simple, text-based work for which he is perhaps best known. Letterpress, offset, typescript, and objects, some with holograph annotations. Includes pieces from Fourre Tout No. 2 (no. 124 of 250). Various sizes. All very good, with toning commensurate with age.…