Allen Ruppersberg

The New Five Foot Shelf, 2003

« In 2001, we decided to publish the complete text of The New Five Foot Shelf in one single volume, in softcover, to make it affordable for most people. We gathered the manual of the 1910’s The Five Foot Shelf Of Books and the five chapters together. With kind support of the International Centre of Graphic Arts of Ljubljana, we published in June 2003 The New Five Foot Shelf of Books, presented during the Ljubljana Biennale. The New Five Foot Shelf of Books includes a great deal of biographical references, such as Duchamp’s or Broodthaers’, that we find in the The Three Marcels chapter. Those references do not belong to public property yet. In the chapter entitled Once upon a time when books were famous, Allen Ruppersberg also uses a lot of authors’ quotes. It became quickly obvious that the commercialization of this book would be impossible without paying rights of mentioned authors. So we decided to publish this book NOT FOR SALE, getting round the law, making the book « out-law », « offside »… and establishing new rules… »

Michèle Didier

The New Five Foot Shelf of Books by Allen Ruppersberg has been in the center of several art performances, during which the artist has offered himself one copy of the book and dedicated it to the persons in the audience.
The book measures 23,50 cm x 16,50 cm by 5,50 cm
• Contains 21 printed 32-page signatures, a total of 672 pages
• Paper : Offset Munken 90 g Main 1.8
• The signatures are stitched with coton thread
• Quadri cover 240 g
• Printed and bound by Herissey, Evreux

Produced in 2003 by Editions Micheline Szwajcer & Michèle Didier.
Co-published in 2003 by Editions Micheline Szwajcer & Michèle Didier and International
Center of Graphic Art of Ljubljana.