In the first week of October Letterpress Workers will be holding an event at the Museum of Printing in Leipzig called “From futura to the future: International Letterpress Workers”. There will be a live printing session as well as a curated exhibition of prints produced by Letterpress Workers over the years. Delighted to be part of it! These two posters are going to Leipzig (and hopefully I would be going there too ;) ) The exhibition will be open for public from 4.10.20 til 15.11.20.
Poster n°1 was made for 'Dada ist 100’ exhibition celebrating 100 years of Dada movement, organised by Marc Berger / Edition Schwarzdruck (DE). The inspiration was taken from the work of the Russian absurdist poet and writer D. Kharms.
Poster n°2 is featured in ‘Like a Whale’ exhibition in Bodleian Library (UK) celebrating 200th anniversary of Herman Melville's birth. The inspiration was taken from Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
The works printed during the Letterpress Workers events during the past 7 years will be on display alongside the works produced by the Workers in their own studios. I’m looking forward meeting everybody in Leipzig, enjoying the printing session and talking ‘type’.
Leipzig is a city with a rich tradition of bookmaking and publishing. The Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig holds a rich collection of various printing presses (around 100), typecasting equipment and a bookbindery, which makes the museum an ideal platform for courses and workshops. The museum, based in the former industrial quarter Plagwitz, belongs to one of the 51 most important locations of Saxon industrial heritage and its collection is listed in the nationwide inventory of intangible cultural heritage of the German Commission for UNESCO. In 2000 the Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig was formally restructured as a private foundation. The foundation is sponsored by the Giesecke+Devrient Foundation, the city of Leipzig as well as by the graphic industry of Germany.
At the heart of the collection is the type foundry — one of last of its kind in Germany. Here the letters are still being cast regularly. Besides an extended collection of wood and metal types, the museum has a unique collection of matrices and masterfully-cut steel punches. A very few institutions can offer a comparable collection. Among the most precious of these are rare sets such as Hieroglyphics, Chinese, Cuneiform, Runes and other non-Latin and ancient alphabets. With some of them dating back to the 16th century.
Leipzig is also a city of music, with its important musical publishing houses playing a decisive role. You probably must have heard about the world's oldest music publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel (founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf). Well, while scrolling through the website I've discovered that museum offers an exhibition on music printing where the most important techniques of notation and printing are displayed chronologically: the system of music-type composition invented by the music publisher J. G. I. Breitkopf in 1754 in Leipzig, music engraving as well as lithography. His investigations in history and mathematics led him to a scientific study of printing, which resulted in an improvement of musical notation, revolutionizing the sheet music printing with movable types, and supervising the creation of the font we all know now as Breitkopf Fraktur.
I’m also curious about publishing houses in Leipzig who were printing books in the Russian language at the beginning of the 20 century. Over the years I've been coming across various publications by J.Ladyschnikow Verlag G.m.b.H. from Berlin who, between 1906 and 1929, had published more than 150 book titles of Russian authors such as Tolstoy, Gorky, Chekhov, Turgenev etc. I do have a few examples in my collection and they all coming out of Spamer (or maybe Schpamer) printing house from Leipzig. Would love to discover more about that.
Well, I hope the ‘corona’ situation will be solved by October and we can travel to Leipzig!
From Futura to the Future.
Stiftung Werkstattmuseum für Druckkunst Leipzig / Museum of Printing in Leipzig
Nonnenstraße 38
04229 Leipzig, Germany
04.10-15.11.20
Partners/supporters: Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen — Bereich Bauhaus-Jubiläum, Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Druckkunst Leipzig e.V.
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LpW 2019
LpW 2018
LpW2017
LpW 2016
LpW 2015
LpW 2014
LpW 2013
Music, Typography & Printmaking