Overview

One of the most influential, if rarely seen, visual poetry books of the post-war avant-garde, Pomerand's Lettrist masterwork elaborates a psychogeographic story of the bohemian Parisian neighbourhood of Saint-Germain-des-Pres through punning prose-poems and dazzling, rebus-like 'metagraphics' on facing pages. Pomerand's Saint Ghetto of the Loans (1950) is one of the earliest, and perhaps most formidably sustained examples of the Lettrist's engagement with verbo-visual expression. This expanded, bilingual edition also includes the book's original preface by the filmmaker Jacques Baratier, the author's idiosyncratic resume of his published works, a contextualizing afterword by Michael Kasper, as well as a complete bibliography and filmography, which reveals the breadth and scope of Pomerand's Lettrist activities.

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9781954218130

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In 1945, after several years in the French Resistance, Gabriel Pomerand (1925-1972) returned to Paris where, together with Romanian refugee Isidore Isou, he launched the Lettrist movement, catalyzing a loose collective of avant-garde writers, visual artists, filmmakers, and cabaret performers in in postwar Left Bank Paris. The Lettrists espoused a philosophy of constant creative renewal in which, among other things, letterforms were to be the basis, the underlying principle, of future artwork. Along with their followers, Pomerand and Isou instigated dozens of performances, exhibits, and publications in a decade-long burst of energy. As the mouthpiece of the movement in its first years, Pomerand organized scandalous public lectures, gave reputedly remarkable performances of sound poetry, painted oils, and made an award-winning short movie. His prolific output over the years included innovative artists books and novels, as well as screenplays, cultural criticism, and book reviews. Michael Kasper is a translator, experimental essayist, and creator of a dozen artists books. He has translated the work of Belgian Surrealists Paul Nouge, Paul Colinet, and Louis Scutenaire, French Lettrist Gabriel Pomerand, and German avant-garde visionary Paul Scheerbart. Bhamati Viswanathan is an independent legal scholar and the author of Cultivating Copyright: How Creative Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive the Digital Age (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2021). She works to empower artists of color both at home and in the developing world.

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