Le siège de l’air
Year: 1946
Author: Jean Arp (1886 - 1966)
Artists: Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 - 1943) and Jean Arp (1886 - 1966)
Publisher: Pro Francia
Right from the start of his career, the artist and poet Jean Arp valued co-creation. He played an important role in various European avant-garde movements - like Dadaism and Surrealism - and was interested in the interplay between different forms of artistic expression. Arp loved experimenting with materials and often created variations on his own sculptures, drawings and collages. He also published diverse versions of his own poems, written in German as well as in French. With some help from his friends he even translated his own poetry. His first French anthology, Le siège de l’air (1946), is a good example of such a creative process. Arp initially wrote his own word-for-word translations, based on which his publisher - the poet Alain Gheerbrant (1920-2013), who lacked German language skills - proposed some synonyms that Arp subsequently tried out.
From ‘duos’ to ‘ré-créations’
The anthology is dedicated to his wife Sophie Taeuber, his most significant artistic partner. The illustrations - a torn paper (‘papier déchiré’) on the back cover and eight duo-drawings by Arp and Taeuber - not only reinforce the modernist look of the publication but also bring back to life Taeuber’s work. In 1943 she passed away due to an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. The black-and-white line drawings were made in 1939 and form part of a series of twenty ‘duos’. This third and last major collaborative project of Taeuber and Arp focuses on the interplay of lines. The sharp contrast with the flat background and the interrelationships between lines create multiple variations, stable constructions made out of triangles alternate with smooth but closed forms. And even though some favourite themes of Taeuber and Arp (like stick figures and amoebas) remain clearly visible, their individual contributions blend together.
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Le siège de l’air, pages 12-13 with a duo-drawing by Sophie Taeuber and Jean Arp
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Le siège de l’air, pages 72-73 with a duo-drawing by Sophie Taeuber and Jean Arp
Taeuber, who called herself simply an ‘artiste peintre’, was a true pioneer of abstract and concrete art. She made wall paintings, textile and interior designs, worked as a teacher, dancer and puppeteer and made illustrations for publications of Arp’s poetry. Later on she became the editor-in-chief of Plastique-Plastic, an international art magazine. Her search for universal geometric shapes, their correlations and the presence of movement and humour characterize her distinctly modern style.
Arp, who always showed the studio of his lesser-known wife to his visitors, continued to promote her versatile work after her unexpected death. He even maintained their creative dialogues. Their ‘duos’ were superseded by ‘ré-créations’ that Arp still considered to be Taeuber’s work. He used reproductions of her work to make metal reliefs and torn paper art. Their duo-drawings from 1939 were transformed into collages. Moreover, he continued to honour Taeuber - his ‘star’ (étoile) - in his poetry. Poems like ‘chanson pour sophie’ and ‘violettes rouges’ from Le siège de l’air express his loss and combine expressions of grief and praise. These short verses depict her as flower and sole creator of his dreamworld, in which wings and branches mingle and day and night merge into each other.
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Le siège de l’air, pages 90-91 with a duo-drawing by Sophie Taeuber and Jean Arp
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Le siège de l’air, pages 56-59 with a duo-drawing by Sophie Taeuber and Jean Arp
A singular modernist edition
The personal aspect of the aforementioned poems is not as prominent in most of his poetry. Arp’s mystical desire emerges regularly in Le siège de l’air, but the influences of Dadaism and Surrealism on his work are obvious. From playful repetitions and pure sound poems full of humour and mockery to automatic writings and the most curious dream associations: Arp’s poems never cease to surprise. His free verses, composed without any capitals or punctuation, challenge the reader to develop a personal interpretation.
The deliberate lack of decoration and the sans serif typeface strengthen the modernist look of Le siège de l’air. And while Arp taught the young avant-garde publisher Alain Gheerbrant the art of layout and typography, his future publishing house - K éditeur - would not adopt the austere style of this particular volume. Shortly after the war Gheerbrant did not hold his licence yet and his first three publications were issued with some help from other publishing companies. Le siège de l’air thus became the first and last issue of a new poetry magazine - Vrille - published by Pro Francia. Up until the beginning of the sixties Pro Francia nevertheless continued to use the name ‘Vrille’ and published a series of poetry collections under this title. But Le siège de l’air is the first volume of a series of poetry collections called ‘Le quadrangle’. The following volumes of this avant-garde series were published by K éditeur, under the direction of Alain Gheerbrant.
Bibliographical description
Description: Le siège de l'air : poèmes 1915-1945 / Arp ; avec huit duo-dessins par Arp et Taeuber-Arp et un avant-propos par Alain Gheerbrant. - Paris: Pro Francia, 1946. - 140 p. : ill. ; 23 cm
Printer: Grou Radenez (Paris)
Edition: 1000 copies
This copy: Number 206 of the 900 copies on cream wove paper
Note: Cover and title page mention: Vrille
Bibliography: Monod 523 ; Bénézit 1-468/471 & 13-427/428
Shelfmark: KW KOOPM L 520
References
- Aimée Bleikasten, Arp: bibliographie I. London, Grant & Cutler, 1981-1983
- Aimée Bleikasten (red.), Arp poète plasticien: actes du colloque de Strasbourg, septembre 1986. Paris, L’Âge d’Homme, 1987
- Renaud Ego, Atelier Jean Arp et Sophie Taeuber. Clamart, Fondation Arp; Paris, Éditions des Cendres, 2012
- Alain Gheerbrant & Léon Aichelbaum, K éditeur. Cognac, Le temps qu’il fait, 1991
- Sandor Kuthy (ed.), Sophie Taeuber, Hans Arp : Künstlerpaare, Künstlerfreunde : dialogues d’artistes, résonances. Bern, Kunstmuseum; Rolandseck, Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-Arp; Fribourg, Office du Livre, 1988
- Gabriele Mahn, ‘Biography’, in: Sophie Taeuber-Arp [website], accessed 19-11-2024 https://sophietaeuberarp.org/english/biografie/
- Guenther C. Rimbach, ‘Sense and Non-Sense in the Poetry of Jean Hans Arp’, in: The German Quarterly, 36/2 (Mar. 1963), p. 152-163
- Eric Robertson, Arp: painter, poet, sculptor. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2006