Quasi per caso (poemi materici) / Fast immer aus Zufall / Presque toujours par hasard / Nearly always by chance.

Stuttgart.: Galerie Senatore., 1970. Contents loose as issued in publisher’s cardboard box, with titles printed on label pasted to lid.. Box (40.5 x 33.5 x 1.8 cm).. 12 colour screenprints printed on thin white card, together with four small sample bags containing sand, earth, stones and small wooden discs. Together with a double-page text sheet, and folded statement poster (with small areas of sand glued to sheet). The twelve screenprints are each signed and dated by Carrega in pencil, and numbered from an edition of 100 copies. Ugo Carrega (1935-2014) was a grandee of visual poetry in Italy. In the 1960s Carrega would develop an original type of visual writing or script called “scrittura simbiotica” (symbiotic writing). The concept of symbiotic writing was, soon afterwards, superposed by what Carrega came to designate as “Nuova Scrittura” (New Writing). Carrega’s development as a verbo-visual poet was significantly fostered and framed by his continuous involvement in the foundation of art magazines and art centres, such as TOOL, quaderni di scrittura simbiotica, and the Bollettino TOOL. Apart from being himself the editor of magazines on verbo-visual poetry, Carrega collaborated with publications such as Lotta Poetica, Amodulo, Linea Sud and Tèchne. This portfolio was produced in conjunction with Carrega’s solo exhibition of the Galerie Senatore in Stuttgart, November - December 1970. Published in an edition of 100 copies it consists of 12 numbered and signed poetic graphic works, together with packaged samples of earth, sand, stone and wood. Carrega’s premise in this work is described by him as such: “When different signs (words and things) are placed on a sheet of paper (limited space), it’s more difficult to avoid the birth of interactions among them than to give rise to them (by chance). This work is a challenge to the association of signs in the limited space of the sheet of paper. That is, the goal is to succeed in creating something that might raise difficulties for the mind in its decoding the meaning of the work”. Four different signs were then printed within the designs of the screenprints, to indicate the position in which the four inorganic samples were to be glued by the reader.