Frankfurter Postzeitung
The last book I made before spending ten years focusing exclusively on the project
Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön was also my
last book with FlugBlatt-Presse. Most of the material I used for the collages came from letters and envelopes from more than 15 years of FlugBlatt correspondence. I made the collages on original pages of the
Frankfurter Postzeitung . The colophon text describes the project as follows:
I have always been fascinated by old newspapers. While their contemporaries considered them highly perishable items with a short expiration period, bound by the need to be up to date, today they are historical documents that grow more interesting as they age. The Frankfurter Postzeitung, for instance (I used the 4th quarter of 1852 for this project), states on December 30, “The great importance of the visit that the Emperor of Austria recently paid to Berlin, is acknowledged beyond the boundaries of our fatherland.” Because this was written in 1852, we know it is about Franz Joseph I, who had been in office for four years at that point and who married the Bavarian Princess Elisabeth (Sissi) two years later. At that time, it was as immediate for the newspaper’s printers and readers as the resignation of Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in January of 1997 is for us today. What remains is a 145-year-old piece of printed paper that speaks to us to a greater or lesser degree according to our preferences and interests, or our level of historical knowledge. I added relatively new material to this older material: letters and envelopes from about 15 years of FlugBlatt correspondence. In addition to the material attraction of the various handwriting styles and typescripts, papers, rubber stamps and postage stamps, I rediscovered little stories in them: praise and criticism, acceptances and refusals, important and banal details. Naturally, the collages only include fragmentary pieces of the specific content of the letters as well as the newspaper. And yet they are an important part of the whole; they are intended to bear witness, proclaim, produce (zeitigen) in the old sense related to the German word for newspaper (Zeitung). Thus I hope that the observer, in enjoying the visual (as well as tactile) attraction of the material, will also become a reader [. . .]
The edition of 20 copies was based on the material I had available. The 4th quarter of 1852 in the Frankfurter Postzeitung was just enough for 20 books. Naturally, all of the copies are different, both in terms of the newspaper pages and the collages. In the beginning, I had chosen the rough material for the collages from a large selection of letters and envelopes. But there were constant changes during the actual collage work. My goal had been to create the collages very spontaneously. At the same time,
the results were to be somewhat figurative, not just patterns and structures made of various pieces of paper. In fact, I tore up the material relatively indiscriminately and then spontaneously chose “scraps” that I thought would be good for the collages. This method meant that none of the collages in the edition were identical.
36 pages, newspaper with original collages, booklet with title label, in cardboard slipcase,
10.5 x 29.5 cm, 20 numbered and signed copies. Lahnstein 1997.