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| Un Coup De Des N'Abolira Le Hasard, 1969 Marcel Broodthaers Illustrated book with twenty photolithographs based on the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé |
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| Original Text by Stéphane Mallarmé |
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| Marcel Broodthaers notes on the original book pages 6-7 |
'A Throw of The Dice Will Never Abolish Chance' by Stéphane Mallarmé
Preface 1897
'I would prefer that this Note was not read, or, skimmed, was forgotten; it tells the knowledgeable reader little that is beyond his or her penetration: but may confuse the uninitiated, prior to their looking at the first words of the Poem, since the ensuing words, laid out as they are, lead on to the last, with no novelty except the spacing of the text. The ‘blanks’ indeed take on importance, at first glance; the versification demands them, as a surrounding silence, to the extent that a fragment, lyrical or of a few beats, occupies, in its midst, a third of the space of paper: I do not transgress the measure, only disperse it. The paper intervenes each time as an image, of itself, ends or begins once more, accepting a succession of others, and, since, as ever, it does nothing, of regular sonorous lines or verse – rather prismatic subdivisions of the Idea, the instant they appear, and as long as they last, in some precise intellectual performance, that is in variable positions, nearer to or further from the implicit guiding thread, because of the verisimilitude the text imposes. The literary value, if I am allowed to say so, of this print-less distance which mentally separates groups of words or words themselves, is to periodically accelerate or slow the movement, the scansion, the sequence even, given one’s simultaneous sight of the page: the latter taken as unity, as elsewhere the Verse is or perfect line. Imagination flowers and vanishes, swiftly, following the flow of the writing, round the fragmentary stations of a capitalised phrase introduced by and extended from the title. Everything takes place, in sections, by supposition; narrative is avoided. (...)'
Images © Marcel Broodthaers sourced from here
Text sourced from here
I came across this gem while visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. While being at the Art Libris fair I've met Manuel Gimeno, an artist, who briefly introduced me to Mallarme's poetry of the white page. When I then saw Broodthaers's interpretation in the museum, I was quickly drawn into a cycle of ideas for my next book, which would hopefully be coming soon (in a months time.)
