Almanach Ecart. Une archive collective, 1969-2019
The Beauty of Administration
A research publication on the archive of the artist collective Ecart, which was founded in Geneva in 1969, presents its very attractive material in a rigorously conceptual arrangement. A facsimile of a datable document is reproduced on each page, along with a brief commentary. Letters, postcards, invoices, invitations and other items have been selected such that there is one document for each of the 365 days of the year. A chronological progression through the book adds up to a virtual year; in fact, though, the documents cover a period of at least a decade. The page layouts assign fixed locations to certain elements, such as dates and page numbers, while the placement of the differently sized facsimiles varies within a kind of system. The aesthetic appearance of all the items acts as a reminder that, in the age of Situationism and Fluxus, even administrative documents were pressed into service as works of art. The expansive presentation creates both an attractive mixture and an informative record of the group’s activities in the 1970s. The brown dust jacket made of packing paper and the grey cardboard binding underscore the archive character, while the font is based on a typewriter font that was used in Ecart’s newsletter.
