Grigory Katsnelson

(1974 - )               [

7072

Grigory Katsnelson

Face poetry art book

St. Petersburg: Asf-Alt, 2002

210 x 145 mm. 60 pages

Unique copy

Katsnelson graduated in 1992 from the Leningrad school of Visual art and got a teaching degree at the St. Petersburg State Pedagogical University in 1997. Two years later he started as a teacher of fine arts at the Petersburg Krylov Gymnasium. At the same time he became member of the Russian Art Association and set out on a career as an artist and poet, as the latter under the pseudonym Girsh. He combined art and poetry in self published books, the first of which was The beautiful caretaker a more or less conventional looking Xeroxed booklet, published in 50 copies in 1998. This was followed by more complex printed Xeroxed books on coloured papers with handwritten and hand-drawn additions similar to the 1980s samizdat publications by Russian artists and poets living in Paris and New York (see nr. 151). These booklets combine poetry with biographical information and most of the time appear as single copies. Even though numbered (copy nr. 1) Face Poetry Art Book is an example of such an unique copy. With coloured Xeroxed papers heightened with red ballpoint and coloured crayon it re-uses the cover of Artist book, published in an edition of 50 copies the same year. It shows 30 portraits of Katsnelson’s favourite poets ranging from Apollinaire, the Russian futurists and Oberiuts to Brodsky and Ginsberg, as well as examples of their poetry written in the original language.

References:

Brussels 2005, p.235

Eindhoven 2020, no. 2002-02