Stoppen met lezen

BOEKS 02 Giving Up Reading

14,5 x 20 cm
35 pages
edition of 150
language: Dutch
publisher Troebel Neyntje, 2018
Risoprinter Risiko Press

price book (€20)+ shipping cost (€5)=€25

www.boeks.gent

The eponymous self-help book was published in early 2018 by Troebel Neyntje, an initiative in Antwerp which organises exhibitions and publishes books, often of an absurdist and unrealistic nature.

“At a time when Web pages containing text are viewed for an average 1.5 seconds, we must be honest with ourselves and give up reading,” says Idris Sevenans of Troebel Neyntje. The manual’s attempts to achieve this are indebted to “double artists” like Marcel Broodthaers and Marcel van Maele, who died exactly ten years ago. These poets-cum-visual artists were exploring the possibilities of rendering their poetry unreadable as early as the 1960s. In 1964, for example, Broodthaers used plaster to encase the last fifty copies of his poetry book Pense-Bête, while van Maele muzzled books by means of white paint, clothes irons, spikes, and trash cans. From 1972, van Maele started bottling poems in wine, beer, and milk bottles. Two years later, Broodthaers produced the bottle edition Le Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille. Stopper it!