An intimate journey through the
Lettrist movement via the collection and library of Hans Naumann (born in 1933 in Germany), one of Maurice Lemaître's most trusted collectors and one of the most important Lettrist bibliophiles, who has assembled a vast collection of rare or unique works and books related to this avant-garde movement founded in 1946 by
Isidore Isou and still largely overlooked.
This volume includes an introductory essay by Frédéric Acquaviva, two previously unpublished interviews with Hans Naumann, and numerous illustrations of Lettrist works (sculptures, paintings, and drawings) that once belonged to him. In the final chapter, approximately one hundred Lettrist books are described, followed by an impressive list of works from the movement that Hans Naumann collected over the course of more than fifty years.
Featuring
Roberto Altmann, Arkitu, Edouard Berreur, Félix Bismuth,
Broutin, Viviane Brown,
Henri Chopin, Frédérique Devaux, Albert Dupont, Albert Grimaud, Christiane Guymer, Micheline Hachette,
Isidore Isou, Aude Jessemin, Maurice Lemaître, François Letaillieur,
Maggy Mauritz, Gabriel Pomerand, François Poyet, Woodie Roehmer, Roland Sabatier, Alain Satié, Jacques Spacagna, Dany Tayarda, Vergé, Florence Villers, Rosie Vronski, Gil J Wolman, Joseph Wolman...
Frédéric Acquaviva, born in 1967, has been since 1990 a
sound artist and
experimental music composer, creating chronopolyphonic installations and CDs and playing in art galleries, in museums or in underground venues.
Staying away from traditional networks of musicians and composers, he meets and works with historical figures in art, poetry or video, sometimes a long time before their being discovered by the media. He has collaborated this way with
Isidore Isou, Maurice Lemaître, Marcel Hanoun,
Pierre Guyotat,
Jean-Luc Parant, mezzo-soprano
Loré Lixenberg, film maker
FJ Ossang and choreographer Maria Faustino, among others.
His astonishing music, in which he chooses an experimental presentation using, is constantly exploring, always in new ways, the relationship between voice and language, sound and its meaning, even the idea of physical body sounds integrated into the musical composition, kept away from the concert hall's diffusions (acousmatic or sound installations). As the critic
Eric Vautrin remarked in
Mouvement magazine, his work is not a “sound work but a work about sound”.
Acquaviva has become not only one of the essential protagonists of the rediscovery of historical avant-garde, more precisely of Lettrism (
Isidore Isou, Gabriel Pomerand, Maurice Lemaître, Gil J Wolman, Jean-Louis Brau, Jacques Spacagna,
François Dufrêne, Roland Sabatier, Alain Satié,
Broutin), but of
Sound Poetry (
Henri Chopin,
Bernard Heidsieck), and has worked with some unique and outstanding historical figures (Pierre Albert-Birot,
Otto Muehl). He has done this through his knowledge of and interest in different disciplines: editing books, curating art exhibitions, being an events creator, lecturing, establishing catalogue raisonnés and bibliographic databases, creating radiophonic works, being an art critic, a filmmaker, and a publisher, with Editions Derrière la Salle de Bains or for his own editions:
AcquAvivA, and the magazine
CRU.
See also
Yoann Sarrat : Phonosophie et corporalité compositionnelle – L'art sonore de Frédéric Acquaviva
