SQUARINGS. ONE OF 400 SIGNED NUMBERED BY LEWITT AND HEANEY

ONE OF A TOTAL EDITION OF 400 COPIES SIGNED BY BOTH LEWITT AND HEANEY

Heaney, Seamus  and Sol Lewitt
SQUARINGS
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2003
28.5 x 26.5cm. Unpaginated. Printed cloth boards in embossed cloth covered slipcase. First edition thus of this lovely collaboration between the Irish poet and Lewitt where a sequence of 48 poems are illustrated (on the facing verso page) with a sequential series of 48 lithographs by Lewitt. it is a strange and far from obvious pairing - Heaney's poems (first published in 1991) consider nature and in particular the untouchable, invisibles of the universe - perhaps even the immaterial - while Lewitt's works are physical in the extreme - squares of lines which on first viewing seem like intense patches of scribbles but after consideration can be seen to be the complex outcomes of various criss-crossing straight and wavy lines which follow sequential rules put into operation in turn by the artist. Here is the key to understanding the works - namely, Lewitt's insight that a few well chosen rules will create complexity in a drawing that is not previously expected or visible until the work is undertaken. (cf the recent A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram). Introductory essay by Helen Vendler. This copy is one of ONLY 400 hand numbered copies (along with 26 hors commerce lettered copies for private use) issued in total with both poet and artist having signed the colophon. Fine condition in fine slipcase. A rare later work by Lewitt.