Rewriting the World: Isidore Isou and the Lettrist Book (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781951163228)

A risograph tribute to the artist books of Lettrism, the underrecognized precursor to Fluxus and the Situationist International

Founded in Paris in 1945 by Isidore Isou (1925-2007), Lettrism radically expanded literature and art by shifting meaning from words to letters and signs, anticipating later developments in conceptual art, concrete poetry, experimental cinema, comics and Fluxus. Its members included Maurice Lemaître, Gabriel Pomerand, François Dufrêne, Gil J. Wolman and Guy Debord (who would go on to found the Situationist International). Rewriting the World documents the first major US exhibition dedicated to the Lettrist book and positions Isidore Isou and Lettrism as foundational to the history of artists' books. Through essays, historical documents and extensive illustrations, this publication foregrounds the Lettrist book as a site of formal, material and conceptual experimentation, reframing Isou's hypergraphic novels and book objects as key precedents for postwar and contemporary book practices.