What Are Legends : Dick Higgins [ Fluxus, Word Art, Intermedia ]

Description

First edition of “What Are Legends” the first book by Dick Higgins , Fluxus movement artist, poet, publisher and Intermedia inventor.

Higgins, Dick. What Are Legends: A Clarification. Paper Editions Corporation. 1960.

 

The first book by Dick Higgins What Are Legends was printed by Higgins himself at the Manhattan School of Printing using a found hand lettered text and images by Maine artist Bern Porter. An experiment in visual poetry and word art, the repurposed cutup words and images are formed into often repetitive “stanzas” and pages. As explained by Higgins in his 1984 essay, “The Strategy of Each of My Books”  “[What Are Legends] exemplifies my near-obsession with unifying my theory and practice, written as it is in my “legend” style; this style uses few verbs in the indicative mode, substituting participles wherever possible, in order to get a pictorial effect in words.”

Most famous for his work in the Fluxus art movement of the 1960s, Higgins also the coined of the term “intermedia” to describe the group’s cross-genre artworks. Along with his wife Alison Knowles, he was an early proponent on the use of computers in poetry, and was fascinated by the works of Giordano Bruno on memory.

 

8vo, [44]pp, perfect bound printed paper wraps. Sticker residue to front wrap top corner. Some soiling and darkening to wrap edges. Reading creases to spine. Presentation inscription from previous owner to first free endpaper dated 1975. Pages clean. Illustrated throughout. Good condition.

 

If you liked this book, you might also like this xeroxed copy of Bill Butler’s In Progress: Alder Gulch and Other Poems made for Bill Butler or this original copy of God with the Words of Swami Sivananda by Peter Max.