don't read please
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- don't read please
- print on paper
- 10,3 × 14,8 cm
The mere perception of the written exhortation “don’t read please” annuls the meaning of its message. This tension between the process of reading and understanding the meaning of what is read is one of the typical strategies of linguistically oriented art and finds frequent application in the field of mail art, where the fundamental media are visual letters, postcards, telegrams, and/or stamps. Postcards were published by G. J. de Rook, a Dutch visual poet and independent publisher. And in the 1970s, he organized a series of exhibitions devoted to specific types of phonetic and visual poetry. He also compiled an anthology entitled “Visele Poëzie,” was a co-founder of the magazine “Bloknoot” (1968–1982), and was furthermore a member of a collective set up in 1972 by In-Out Center, the first independent gallery in Amsterdam. At the end of the 1970s, In-Out Center launched the development of internationally recognized initiatives such as the De Appel Gallery or Other Books and So (a publishing house run by Ulise Carrión). J.P.