Material. Sonderausgabe (Special edition).

Düsseldorf.: Self-published. (Distributed by Jürgen Dahl, Krefeld)., 1959. Four A4 sheets of duplicated typewritten texts, printed single-side.. (29.5 x 20.8 cm).. On the 30th January 1959, at 8pm, at the opening reception of an exhibition of Jean Tinguely at the Galerie Schmela in Du_sseldorf, Daniel Spoerri, Nusch Bremer and Claus Bremer simultaneously read three poems, placed in front of them at eye level and rolled around a cylinder that rotated at its own speed as the reading progressed. The participants then had to make arbitrary choices about which words, phrases, or sentences to use. The resultant cacophany resulted in an absurd presentation reminiscent of the Dada Cabaret Voltaire. In March 1960, when the Edition MAT was exhibited at the Gallery One in London, Spoerri organized a simultaneous reading at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London with the audience participation. Presented here is a complete set of the four typewritten sheets, printed with the three texts to be performed: Hajo Bode’s “elementarbausteine der materie” (Elementary Building Blocks of Matter), Spoerri’s “Tinguely hat zwei Katzen” (Tinguely has two cats), and Bremer & Spoerri’s “Die Apparate von Jean Tinguely” (The Apparatus by Jean Tinguely). These four sheets exist as the rare ‘Sonderausagbe’ or ‘Special edition’ of Spoerri’s Material periodical. The three texts were not published in a booklet as with the rest of Material, but in their original form as duplicated typewritten A4 pages. The last of the four pages reads: “dieser druck ist eine sonderausgabe von material / vertrieb passagebuchhandlung jürgen dahl krefeld deutschland”. [Ref. Katerina Vatsella - Edition MAT: Daniel Spoerri, Karl Gerstner und das Multiple, p.24, illus. p. 57].