2020
Following the
Almanac for the year 2012 , which I published in 2012 as an edition of 12 copies,
2020 seemed like a good starting point for a new project. I began working on it in January. The plan was to create 20 copies, each consisting of
20 double spreads, in accordion form. It includes a variety of texts relating to different dates that feature the number
20 . The typography was handset and letterpress printed, then complemented with original postage stamps glued in. The stamps had to be in denominations of
20, with a connection to the theme of the respective page.
The title spread includes a motto from Johann Heinrich Zedler’s
Universal-Lexicon (1750): Zwantzig, […] In geheimer Bedeutung wird diese Zahl für unglücklich gehalten, dieweil angemercket worden, daß sie in der Heiligen Schrifft niemahls bey fröhlichen, sondern allezeit bey beschwerlichen und betrübten Gelegenheiten gebrauchet wird, […]
Twenty, […] this number is secretly considered to have an unlucky significance because it has been noted that it is never used in the Holy Scriptures for joyful occasions, but always for difficult and troubled ones […].
The
second double spread quotes a text by Isaac Asimov, whose 100th birthday fell on January 2, 2020. In his 1987 essay about global warming, he writes:
[…] It is estimated that by 2020 the concentration [of carbon dioxide] will be about 0.0660 percent, or nearly twice what it is now […] . Asimov projects a dramatic sea-level rise due to increased melting of polar ice. A Hungarian 20-fillér stamp (flood prevention) from 1940 is added.
Double spread 3 commemorates January 20, 2020: Martin Luther King Day in the United States. An excerpt from his August 28, 1963, speech in Washington is interposed with a list of 20 African Americans who were arbitrarily shot and killed by police officers between 2001 and 2020.
Double spread 4
is about February 20, 1820, or more precisely a drawing that Ludwig Emil Grimm (the youngest brother of Jacob and Wilhelm) made on that day. Ludwig Emil had been invited to an art evening at Senator Franz Brentano’s home in Frankfurt, and he immortalized the attendees in a drawing that is now part of the collection at Frankfurt’s Städel Museum.
A QR code printed on the spread takes readers to the museum’s website, where they can see an image of the original drawing.
Double spreads 5 and 6 are dedicated to Friedrich Hölderlin, whose 250th birthday was March 20, 2020. An excerpt from his
Hyperion (So kam ich unter die Deutschen … /
Thus I arrived among the Germans …) and two seasonal poems are arranged to create a typographical landscape.
Double spread 7 commemorates April 6, 2020, the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death. In 1520, the year that Raphael died, Albrecht Dürer visited the Netherlands and kept a diary of his travels. The spread features an excerpt from Dürer’s travel diary, and a QR code lets readers view a drawing by Raphael (website of Albertina Vienna) that he had given to Dürer in 1515.
Double spread 8 marks the opening of a Dada exhibition in Cologne, on April 20, 1920, as well as the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and caused an estimated 4.2 million barrels of oil to spill into the ocean.
Double spreads 9 and 10 commemorate May 11, 2020, the 300th birthday of Hieronymus Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen, with one of the famous tall tales about the Baron printed in the shape of a horse that has been cut in two.
Double spread 11 illustrates a passage from Boccaccio’s
Decameron in the shape of an airplane and points out that as
of May 20, 2020 4,929,455 people worldwide had been infected with the coronavirus, and 324,063 had died of the infection.
Double spread 12 commemorates World Refugee Day on June 20, 2020. The “Hun speech” by Wilhelm II – his sendoff for German soldiers in Bremerhaven
(If you come face to face with the enemy, he will be defeated! Grant no pardons! Take no prisoners! …) – reminds readers of June 20, 1900, when the German ambassador Clemens von Ketteler was shot and killed in Beijing, which led to retaliation by European, Japanese and US troops.
Double spread 13 commemorates July 20, 1944, and the failed bombing attempt on Hitler’s life.
Double spread 14 commemorates the 250th birthday of Hegel on August 27, 2020, and references a work by Dieter Roth: his “Literature Sausages” titled
Hegel, Werke in 20 Bänden . A QR code linked to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart website lets readers view the artwork.
Double spread 15 uses a school passage from Gottfried Keller’s
Der grüne Heinrich to commemorate August 31, 2020, the 150th birthday of Maria Montessori.
Double spread 16 uses a passage from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Hänsel und Gretel” to commemorate the Day of the Child on September 20, 2020.
Double spread 17 commemorates the 30th anniversary of German reunification on October 3, 2020, with texts by
Irmtraud Morgner and Günter Bruno Fuchs.
Double spread 18 commemorates November 20, 1820, the day when the whaling ship Essex was rammed by a sperm whale and sank in the Pacific Ocean.
Double spread 19 commemorates Beethoven’s 250th birthday on December 17, 2020, with a quote from Anthony Burgess’
A Clockwork Orange.
Double spread 20 cites a text by Günter Grass, Nach 20 Seiten waren alle Helden tot …
(After 20 pages all the heroes
were dead …) , and includes the imprint as well as a reference to August 12, 2020, when the number of people infected with the coronavirus had risen to 20 million worldwide.
Zerkall mould-made paper, handset and letterpress. Accordion with printed cloth-over-board cover.
24/17.5 cm, 20 double spreads, 20 numbered and signed copies, in printed slipcase. Flörsheim 2020.