Belgian artist Thierry De Cordier (1954) was once gifted a small book with the hand written title ‘Heracleitos’ on the cover. The booklet, barely eight pages, contained in Dutch texts by Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose original writings are lost and who is only known through the quotations of later authors. At the time, De Cordier read these ‘Fragments of Heraclitus’ superficially without giving them much thought. He put away the book, probably a Dutch translation of Heraclitus by Laurens Vancrevel with artwork by Rik Lina, and forgot about it until it surfaced when he moved house. Reading Heraclitus again after all those years De Cordier found himself captivated by the quotations, sometimes no more than a couple of words, of the philosopher of change (‘no man steps in the same river twice’) and unification of opposites (‘the path up and down are one and the same’). De Cordier started to retranslate the Dutch texts in his native French trying to find a way to combine philosophical and poetic language. It took him more than a full winter to complete the work. De Cordier’s translations were published in 2015 without any comments, footnotes or illustrations by Gerhard Theewen’s Salon Verlag, Cologne. Secure a copy of this exquisite artist’s book, which is in all respects a full-blown and characteristic De Cordier work of art.

Check out the new Sea Urchin chapbook:

Nathaniel Hawthorne – Fresh and lovely, yesterday

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was a short story writer and novelist who is generally regarded as one of the leading representatives of American ‘Dark Romanticism’. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts and descended from a family of Puritan settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the earliest and largest New England colonies. His ancestor John Hathorne was a harsh and unrepentant magistrate at the notorious Salem witch trials, in which twenty people were executed and five died in prison. To distance himself from his fanatical ancestor Nathaniel changed his surname to Hawthorne, but his Puritan lineage remains apparent in the themes of his allegorical works, many of which centre on original sin, the supernatural, inherent evil, damnation and redemption. A gifted and prolific prose writer, Hawthorne explored these themes with deep psychological insight in short stories that also show influences from the German Romanticism of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Ludwig Tieck. ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’ (1844) is an allegorical tale about a poisonous girl and her ruthless father, an excerpt of which has now been re-published by Sea Urchin. The beautiful Sea Urchin chapbook ‘Fresh and lovely, yesterday’ has been made by hand in a limited edition of 15. All artwork by Ben Schot.

Slowscan vol. 33 is a re-issue on vinyl of a cassette that was released on Reflection Press in 1972. Reflection Press was run from Stuttgart from 1968 to 1988 by Fluxus artist Albrecht/d (1944-2013), whose press was an extension of his practice as an action, happening and mail artist. Albrecht/d staged his first Aktionen/Happenings in 1966 and founded Reflection Press in 1968. Between 1967 and 1972 he organised and took part in projects with leading Fluxus artists, such as Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik and Allan Kaprow. One of those improvisational projects was released on cassette on Reflection Press in 1972 under the title ‘Die Abartigen – Den Satz Von Herrn Neuendorf Wiederholen’. A ‘Zufallskomposition’ by Nam June Paik was also included on the edition, a standard Philips SQ-C60 cassette which had ‘AbarT von küNsTlern’ stamped on its label.

The German word ‘abart’ brings to mind the infamous Nazi label ‘entartete kunst’. The terms ‘Abart’ and ‘Abartigen’ had been used by German art dealer Hans Neuendorf in an article to discredit certain artists of the German avantgarde, Wolf Vostell in particular. Albrecht/d and friends took Neuendorf’s derogatory remarks, deconstructed them and threw them back into Neuendorf’s face as a Fluxus sound collage. Neuendorf’s remarks were reworked – usually by telephone – by Kaprow, Paik, Vostell, Hendricks, Toche, Sarée and albrecht/d and were released on cassette as Reflection Press # 25 in 1972. A signed copy of this release is in Jan van Toorn’s collection. Through Van Toorn’s own Slowscan label this rare anti-establishment document has now been made available on vinyl in a handsome and limited edition of 200 copies.