rhythmus r.

RUHM, Gerhard.

Published by Mörbisch., 1958

About this Item

Tall 8vo. (240 x 154 mm). [15 unnumbered leaves including blanks on various paper stock]. Printed text as Concrete poetry throughout, one page with printed monochrome illustrationof a person's back (Rühm?), one leaf of pink sandpaper with excision with printing recto, one leaf of paper silkscreened orange, one leaf of printed tissue and so on; all leaves printed recto only. Original publisher's white printed wrappers with titles to front cover in black, gummed spine rubbed as usual. A very good copy of the very scarce first edition of Gerhard Rühm's ground-breaking artist book. 'rhythmus r', is a key work of Gerhard Rühm, a program of linguistic concretism implemented consistently through all the senses. This printed version uses the mechanical flexibility of the typewriter and communicates the associative content of the written word by the spatial arrangement of words beginning with the letter 'R'. When read, the eye wanders up and down the pages, columns of R-words are printed close to page edges, the leitmotif of 'regen rauscht' or 'rain rushing' cascading to - almost over - the page sides. The acoustic recorded version is loud - Rühm producing torrents of rain, paper tears, with listeners following the 'R' verb series 'rauscht reibt rast' (Roar, rub, rest). With the artist book, Rühm has also attempted to produce a similar acoustic sensation with one of the pages being a sheet of abrasive pink sandpaper. The printing on the verso of the sandpaper sheet reportedly resulted in numerous production problems, which means that the book, issued in an unknown but likely small edition, remains a Rühm rarity. OCLC details only a single copy of this first edition (a more common second edition was published 10 years later by Berlin's 'Rainer Verlag'), at Johns Hopkins in the US. Seller Inventory # 43366

Bibliographic Details

Title: rhythmus r.

Publisher: Mörbisch.

Publication Date: 1958

Binding: Soft cover

Edition: 1st Edition