Multiplication: hyperthéatrie

Paris: Collection PSI, 1969. Octavo (22 × 14 cm). Original printed wrappers; [8] pp. of text, [15] leaves of plates, [4] pp. of text, loosely inserted in photographically illustrated boards. Signed by the artist to colophon. Very good. Rare portfolio of "hypergraphic" textual designs, comprising fifteen plates of photographic prints mounted to bristol board. Published in a print run of 35 copies, all of which were signed by the author and contain an original small frontis drawing by the author - a design for a "hypergraphic poster." 32 copies were printed on Arches and 3 on "Japon imperial". The present copy is one of the 32.

Alongside fellow Lettrist members Isidore Isou and Maurice Lemaître, Sabatier (1942-2022) developed a dense form of communication combining pictograms, letters, symbols, and other codes, referred to as "hypergraphy" or "metagraphics." Ultimately, hypergraphy aimed at deconstructing all spheres of culture into its smallest constitutive elements to create a fundamentally new signifying order. After the war, the Lettrists used new means not only to continue the project of the Futurists and Dadaists, which Marinetti called the "liberation of words", but radicalized it as the detachment of the individual letter. The letters, however, are not only detached from the semantic structures, but are reconstituted and reordered from various written alphabets, signs, pictograms, and so on. In addition, these letters become independent motifs in both graphic art and painting. (Béatrice Hernad and Karin v. Maur, Papiergesänge. Buchkunst im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, München 1992, pp. 46 and 99ff.)

In no other field were the Lettrists as active as in the production of printed materials. For decades, they published numerous print media such as books, journals, pamphlets, brochures, and so on. In doing so, they also exploited the entire spectrum of possibilities. In addition to mass publications, elaborately printed and designed artists' books appeared, as in this case. (Scheppe/Ohrt, The Most Dangerous Game, Leipzig 2018. p. 461)

As of March 2023, KVK, OCLC show two copies in North America.