Happy Bicentennial

Mimeographed illus. [12] leaves. 12mo (144 x 107 mm.), staple-bound. Amsterdam: Daylight Press, [1976].


A scarce artist's book by Padín (b. 1939), published through Ulises Carrión's roving Daylight Press because of stringent censorship in Uruguay. In this book, Padín, a mail artist and poet, directs his ire not at the military dictatorship controlling his home country, but at the American companies that continued to conduct business with Uruguay, despite sanctions instituted by the United States government.


In her examination of this book, Michaëla de Lacaze cogently writes: "After tearing open an envelope, the work's first North American recipients might have been amused to discover yet another mysterious package - the surprise birthday present depicted on the booklet's cover. Festooned with a ludicrously large bow, the gift beckons to be unwrapped, but the only option is to thumb through its text. With every turn of the page, however, the sanguinity of the work's title and first illustration shades into something more sinister. In effect a manual, it contains diagrams that give step-by-step instructions on how to build a simple yet functional bomb to be delivered to any office on Wall Street. This was Padín's sardonic gift to the United States on its 200th anniversary."


In fine condition.


❧ M. de Lacaze, "The Unhappy Ambiguity of Clemente Padín: Politics and Polysemy in Latin American Mail Art," a blog post on the Museum of Modern Art's "post: notes on art in a global context" site, published 17 June 2019 (accessed 12 October 2023).