An Anecdoted Topography of Chance
In connection with a one man show of his snare-pictures at the Galerie Lawrence in Paris in 1962, Spoerri wrote his Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard (Anecdoted Topography of Chance). Spoerri was then living at the Hotel Carcassone in Paris, in room number 13 on the fifth floor. To the right of the entrance door was a table which his wife Vera had painted blue. Spoerri drew on a ‘map" the overlapping outlines of all the 80 objects that were lying on the table on 17 October 1961 at exactly 3:47 p.m. Each object was assigned a number and Spoerri wrote a brief description of each object and the memories or associations it evoked. The descriptions cross referenced other objects on the table which were related. The Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard was printed as a small pamphlet of 53 pages plus a fold out map and index and was distributed as an advertisement for the exhibit. The Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard is more than just a catalog of random objects, however; read in its entirety, it provides a coherent and compelling picture of Spoerri's travels, friends and artistic endeavors.
The Anecdoted Topography of Chance has been called a "quasi-autobiographical tour de force." In 1966, the Something Else Press in New York City published an English translation of the Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard by Emmett Williams, entitled An Anecdoted Topography of Chance (Re-Anecdoted Version). Roland Topor added sketches of each object and additional annotations were added "at random" by Williams and others and by Spoerri himself. A number of appendices were added to the work and a greatly expanded index. The Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard became a cult classic and was published in German translation by Dieter Roth in 1968 as Anekdoten zu einer Topographie des Zufalls. Roth increased in fact the volume of the book by almost a third by adding his own poetic annotations. In 1990, the original French version was reprinted by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and in 1995, an expanded English version was published by the Atlas Press in London, with additional material and annotations, and all of Dieter Roth's texts.
Read more about this topic: Daniel Spoerri
Famous quotes containing the words topography and/or chance:
“That the mere matter of a poem, for instance—its subject, its given incidents or situation; that the mere matter of a picture—the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape—should be nothing without the form, the spirit of the handling, that this form, this mode of handling, should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter;Mthis is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different degrees.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Can it be that chance has made me one of those women so immersed in one man that, whether they are barren or not, they carry with them to the grave the shriveled innocence of an old maid?”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)