T.O.P.

Bloomington, IN: Thomas Ockerse, 1970. First edition. Near fine overall.. Scarce and beautifully-produced collection of concrete and visual poetry. Thomas Ockerse is noted for his participation in Fluxus, mail art, concrete poetry, as well as graphic design, which he has taught for decades at RISD. From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, he created a series of similar works that investigated the line between avant garde linguistic experimentation (concrete poetry, etc.) and pure graphic design. And T.O.P., produced in 1970 while Ockerse was teaching at Indiana University, was one of the best embodiments of these interrogations. A boxed set of 50 works from 1967-70 divided into four groups, described on the artist's website as "poems of typographic structures in two and three dimensions; a set of poems as verbivisual drawings; a set of poems of found postage stamps with their cancellations, plus a series of collages using canceled postage stamps; and found postcards transformed into visual poems." With an introduction by the Danish poet and artist Vagn Steen. Uncommon in trade. 11'' x 8.5''. Original color pictorial box, containing 50 works over [60] unbound leaves. Four pieces printed silkscreen, the balance offset, all on Louvain Supreme paper. One of five-hundred hand-numbered copies, this #280. Box slightly rubbed, worn. Original paper ribbon pasted to box bottom and intended to help lift contexts from box torn from mount, but present. Contents otherwise fine.