Something Else Press
Encyclopedia
Something Else Press was founded by Dick Higgins
in 1963. It published many important Intermedia
texts and artworks by Higgins, Ray Johnson, Gertrude Stein, George Brecht, Daniel Spoerri, Bern Porter, John Cage, Emmett Williams and others. The Something Else Press was an early publisher of Concrete poetry
and other works by Fluxus
artists throughout the 1960s. During the late 1960s in New York City
some of the various artists who worked at the Something Else Press included Editor in Chief Emmett Williams, artist Alison Knowles, American/Israeli poet Larry Friefeld, Irish/American novelist Mary Flanagan, artist Ronnie Landfield
, and publisher/founder Dick Higgins. Fluxus artist and scholar, Ken Friedman
, acted as general manager for Higgins from New York and California in 1970 and 1971. Originally located in Chelsea
in Manhattan, the Something Else Press eventually relocated to West Glover, in northern Vermont
in the 1970s.
"too much an editor, and too little a fund-raiser. His idea of doing business was to wrap books and mail them away - for that one has assistants (mailing books IS fun if one can afford the time) - and he spent too little time looking for production money from foundations and wealthy people. So the press went kaput the following year..." -Letter to H.R. December 27, 1976 -
Fluxus
, The Most Radical and Experimental Art Movement of the Sixties - Ruhe - 1979 - 'A' , Leidsekruisstraat 10, Amsterdam.
Herman disputes Higgins' account; see the talk page for details Talk:Something Else Press.
Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
in 1963. It published many important Intermedia
Intermedia
Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
texts and artworks by Higgins, Ray Johnson, Gertrude Stein, George Brecht, Daniel Spoerri, Bern Porter, John Cage, Emmett Williams and others. The Something Else Press was an early publisher of Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
and other works by Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
artists throughout the 1960s. During the late 1960s in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
some of the various artists who worked at the Something Else Press included Editor in Chief Emmett Williams, artist Alison Knowles, American/Israeli poet Larry Friefeld, Irish/American novelist Mary Flanagan, artist Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
, and publisher/founder Dick Higgins. Fluxus artist and scholar, Ken Friedman
Ken Friedman
Ken Friedman, is a seminal figure in Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, literature, and music. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1966. He has also been involved with mail art, and he has written extensively about Fluxus and Intermedia...
, acted as general manager for Higgins from New York and California in 1970 and 1971. Originally located in Chelsea
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
in Manhattan, the Something Else Press eventually relocated to West Glover, in northern Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
in the 1970s.
Complete List of Something Else Press publications, 1960s
- Jefferson's Birthday/Postface - Dick HigginsDick HigginsDick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
- 1964 - Ample Food For Stupid Thought - Robert FilliouRobert FilliouRobert Filliou was a French Fluxus artist, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro....
- 1965 - A Primer of Happenings & Time/Space Art - Al HansenAl HansenAlfred Earl "Al" Hansen was an American artist considered as one of the most important Fluxus figures. He was a Norwegian American....
- 1965 - The Paper Snake - Ray JohnsonRay JohnsonRaymond Edward Johnson , known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art...
- 1965 - The Four Suits - Alison KnowlesAlison KnowlesAlison Knowles in New York City is an American visual artist known for her soundworks, installations, performances, and publications. Knowles was very active in the Fluxus movement, and continues to create work inspired by her Fluxus experience....
, Tomas SchmitTomas SchmitTomas Schmit Tomas Schmit died on 4 October 2006 at the age of 63 in Berlin, Germany. The artist and author is one of the pioneers of the Fluxus movement of the early 1960s. During the subsequent 40 years, he developed a ramified work of drawings, texts, books and concepts of artists' books...
, Benjamin Patterson, Philip CornerPhilip CornerPhilip Corner is an American composer, action musician, trombone/alphornist, sometime vocalist, pianist-improvisor, theorist-educator, graphic score designer, and visual artist, collage&assembleur, calligrapher.-Biography:After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner...
- 1965 - DaDa Almanach - Richard HuelsenbeckRichard HuelsenbeckRichard Huelsenbeck was a poet, writer and drummer born in Frankenau, Hessen-Nassau.Carl Wilhelm Richard Hülsenbeck was a medical student on the eve of World War I. He was invalided out of the army and emigrated to Zürich, Switzerland in February 1916, where he fell in with the Cabaret Voltaire...
- 1966 - An Anecdoted Topography of Chance - Daniel SpoerriDaniel SpoerriDaniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania, who has been called "the central figure of European post-war art" and "one of the most renown[ed] [artists] of the 20th century." Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures...
- 1966 - The Making of AmericansThe Making of AmericansThe Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress is a modernist novel by Gertrude Stein. The novel traces the genealogy, history, and psychological development of members of the fictional Hersland and Dehning families...
- Gertrude SteinGertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
- 1966 - de-coll/age happenings - Wolf VostellWolf VostellWolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...
- 1966 - Games at the Cedilla, or the Cedilla - George BrechtGeorge BrechtGeorge Brecht , born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil...
, Robert Filliou - 1967 - Dick's 100 Amusements - William Brisbane Dick - 1967
- Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations - Marshall McLuhanMarshall McLuhanHerbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
- 1967 - An Anthology of Concrete Poetry - Emmett WilliamsEmmett WilliamsEmmett Williams was an American poet and visual artist.Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1949 to 1966...
- 1967 - Changes: Notes on Choreography - Merce CunninghamMerce CunninghamMercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
- 1968 - The Book of Hours and Constellations - Eugen Gomringer - 1968
- There's a Little Ambiguity Over There Among the Bluebells - Ruth KraussRuth KraussRuth Krauss was an author of children's books, one of the most well known being The Carrot Seed, and an author of theatrical poems for an adult audience. Many of her books are still in print....
- 1968 - Store Days - Claes OldenburgClaes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
- 1968 - 246 Little Clouds - Dieter RothDieter RothDieter Roth was an Icelandic artist of Swiss German origin best known for his artist's books and for his sculptures and pictures made with rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot....
- 1968 - Geography and Plays - Gertrude Stein - 1968
- Sweethearts - Emmett Williams - 1968
- New Musical Resources - Henry CowellHenry CowellHenry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...
- 1969 - Notations - John CageJohn CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
- 1969 - The Gutman Letter - Walter Gutman - 1969
- foew&ombwhnw - Dick Higgins - 1969
- Lucy Church Amiably - Gertrude Stein -1969
1970s
- The Aesthetics of Rock - Richard MeltzerRichard MeltzerRichard Meltzer was one of the earliest rock music critics. His first book, The Aesthetics of Rock, evolved out of his undergraduate studies in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and graduate studies at Yale University...
- 1970 - The Mythological Travels of a Modern Sir John Mandeville, being an account of the Magic, Meatballs and other Monkey Business Peculiar to the Sojourn of Daniel Spoerri on the Isle of Symi, together with divers speculations thereon - Daniel Spoerri - 1970
- Fantastic Architecture - Wolf Vostell, Dick Higgins - 1970
- A Sailor's Caleder - Ian Hamilton FinlayIan Hamilton FinlayIan Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
, Gordon Huntly - 1971 - Stanzas for Iris Leak - Jackson Mac LowJackson Mac LowJackson Mac Low was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, which Mac Low first experienced in the musical work of John Cage, Earle...
- 1971 - I've Left - Bern PorterBern PorterBernard Harden "Bern" Porter was an American artist, writer, publisher, performer, and scientist.In 2010 his work was recognized by an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.- Biography :...
- 1971 - Thomas Onetwo - Ernest M. Robson - 1971
- Typewriter Poems - ed. Peter Finch - 1972
- A Book About Love And War And Death - Dick Higgins - 1972
- 1 Walked out of 2 and Forgot It - Toby MacLennan - 1972
- Found Poems - Bern Porter - 1972
- Matisse, Picasso and Gertrude Stein - Gertrude Stein - 1972
- Cancer in My Left Ball - John GiornoJohn GiornoJohn Giorno is an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, including Dial-A-Poem. He became prominent as the subject of Andy Warhol's film Sleep...
- 1973 - Brion Gysin Let the Mice In - Brion GysinBrion GysinBrion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
, ed. Jan Herman, William S. BurroughsWilliam S. BurroughsWilliam Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, Ian Sommerville - 1973 - Ring Piece - Geoffrey HendricksGeoffrey HendricksGeoffrey Hendricks is an American artist associated with Fluxus since the mid 1960s, and has styled himself as "cloudsmith" for his extensive work with sky imagery in paintings, on objects, in installations and performances. Hendricks was born in Littleton, New Hampshire in 1931...
- 1973 - The Making of Americans - play by Leon Katz based on the book by Gertrude Stein - 1973
- Breakthrough Fictioneers - ed. Richard KostelanetzRichard KostelanetzRichard Kostelanetz is an American artist, author and critic.He was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the composer Andre Kostelanetz....
- 1973 - One Thousand American Fungi (1902 edition) - Charles McIlvaine, Robert K. MacAdam - 1973
- The Ten Week Garden - Cary Scher - 1973
- A Book Concluding with As a Wife Has a Cow - Gertrude Stein - 1973
- How to Write - Gertrude Stein - 1973
- A Valentine for Noel - Emmett Williams - 1973
- Bio-Music - Manford L. Eaton - 1974
- Something Else Yearbook - ed. Jan Herman - 1974
Other publications
Alongside book publications, Dick Higgins published a series of pamphlets titled "Great Bear Pamphlets". You can browse an entire collection of these on http://www.ubu.com.Changes
While Higgins always remained the primary owner and publisher, other individuals served as editor, including Emmett Williams and Jan Herman. Herman took the job in 1973 and served until the press folded a year later. Higgins is quoted as saying about Herman:"too much an editor, and too little a fund-raiser. His idea of doing business was to wrap books and mail them away - for that one has assistants (mailing books IS fun if one can afford the time) - and he spent too little time looking for production money from foundations and wealthy people. So the press went kaput the following year..." -Letter to H.R. December 27, 1976 -
Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
, The Most Radical and Experimental Art Movement of the Sixties - Ruhe - 1979 - 'A' , Leidsekruisstraat 10, Amsterdam.
Herman disputes Higgins' account; see the talk page for details Talk:Something Else Press.
Sources
- Peter FrankPeter Frank (art critic)Peter Frank is the Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum and an art critic for Angeleno Magazine. He is an occasional contributor to The Huffington Post. Until July 9, 2008, a long-time critic for LA Weekly...
, Something Else Press: An Annotated Bibliography 1983, published by McPherson and Company:documentext ISBN 0-914232-39-8 - Dick HigginsDick HigginsDick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
Intermedia. Something else Newsletter (Something Else Press), 1966. - Hannah HigginsHannah HigginsHannah Higgins is an American writer and academic living in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of the Fluxus artists, Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles.-Biography:...
, Fluxus Experience, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Fall, 2002, Summer, 2003 and Spring 2005.