FRAMEWORKS. 1966. THE EARLIEST BOOK OF ART & LANGUAGE.

N.P. (Coventry): s.p., n.d. (c. 1966)
21 x 15cm, 18pp. No wrappers as issued in this form. Stapled top left. Printed offset lithographic and typeset. This is a consideration by Arkinson of his collaboration with Michael Baldwin for the Air-Conditioning Show aka Air Show (1966/1967). That work (as with others) identified a physical property of the natural environment (air, temperature, geography…) and then used it as a device for aesthetic consideration. Thus, “a column of air or a fog bank could be claimed as objects of artistic attention, contrasting the modes that we have for naming and experiencing them with the ways in which we identify and discuss art.”

This document is the artist’s first book “Frameworks” which Atkinson distributed during 1966 and 1967 in advance of the show and which was additionally circulated privately to other artists and colleagues.

This example is curiously mis-collated with the first 10pp being the final pages of the book and the final 8pp being the first pages. The staple top left is vintage and slightly rusted. We have decided to keep this mis-ordering and not re-order the pages – but any purchaser would of course be free to do this.

Here is a later reprinting of the text – found in the Chapman Brothers Frozen Tears book.

http://www.frozentears.co.uk/frozen_tears_1/texts/artandlang.pdf

This is an exceptionally rare item in fine condition (if one ignores the mistaken order of binding) and one of the earliest documents of Art & Language. This came from the collection of Alan Robinson who was a student at Coventry at the time although not a member of the Art & Language group.