Gábor Altorjay | Object for Short Circuit

Gábor Altorjay 

Object for Short Circuit 

Remscheid, Germany: Vice-Versand, 1969

boxed: 10.3 x 10.3 x 10.3 cm.

Unlimited edition

German publisher Wolfgang Feelisch’s Vice-Versand was founded in 1966, intended to operate as a mail-order catalogue for contemporary art. Typically small in size and with low production costs, the works were presented as open editions and generally priced at DM 8, or approximately US $2. Vice-Versand published works by Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Dieter Roth, Daniel Spoerri, Günther Uecker, Ben Vautier and others. 

Gábor Altorjay’s Object for Short Circuit (or Kurzschlussobjekt) was a simple male electrical outlet attached to a small plastic cube (yellow, red, or blue) which would short circuit and possibly blow a fuse when plugged into an electrical grid. 

Jock Reynolds' Fluxus kit from the same year, Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance, was a very similar work, involving a short extension cord with two male ends. 

Below is a schematic for the work, and a similar piece by the artist, called Short Circuit Purse. 

Jock Reynolds | Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance

Jock Reynolds

Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance

New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1969

9 x 12 x 1.6 cm.

Edition size unknown

Jock Reynolds joined the inaugural class at the University of California Santa Cruz in the mid-1960s, planning to study marine biology. Artist Gurdon Woods left his position at the San Francisco Art Institute to develop the school’s arts curriculum, and encouraged Reynolds to pursue visual studies. There he encountered artists such as Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Robert Watts. Soon after, Woods applied to the Carnegie Foundation and received a large grant, allowing him to bring in visiting artists such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, George Segal, Allan Kaprow, Dan Flavin, James Lee Byars and George Maciunas. 

"Some of these visiting artists would come for a few days to do a performance or to show films by the likes of Andy Warhol,” Reynolds recounted many years later. "Other artists stayed longer to conduct mini-seminars in which they shared their work and provided critiques to the work we students were making both individually and as a creative collective. We staged a number of Fluxus-like performances, including a hilarious Fluxus parade on the campus of U.C. San Diego in the last semester of our work with Watts." 

"I remember Maciunas brought one of his Flux briefcases out west with him and showed us what was inside: 17 boxed objects from 17 Fluxus artists, including Yoko Ono’s infamous film “Bottoms (No. 4)” and a Stan Van Der Beek film loop, among other visual oddities that fascinated us. He invited us to join him and make similar things, so I started to make a series of objects I felt were in the spirit of Fluxus and sent them off to George over the next few years, having no idea that he was actually going to produce and distribute them!”

Maciunas sketched out these ideas (see above) and produced a couple of different cover graphics for Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance. The work consists of a red hinged plastic box, containing an electrical cord with two plug ends. It shares much in common with Gábor Altorjay’s Object for Short Circuit, published the same year in Germany, by Vice-Versand (below). 

Milan Knížák | Necklace

Milan Knížák
Necklace
Remscheid, Germany: Edition VICE-Versand, 1968
41.3 x 30.2 cm.
Edition of 2,000


Necklace (or Halsschmuck) is presumably designed to cut the clothes of the wearer, given the 'destruction' that features in much of the artists' other work (Broken Music, etc).  

The work originally sold for twelve German Marks (or under eight dollars American), which would be the equivalent of around sixty-five dollars, accounting for inflation.

It is unlikely that the full edition of two thousand copies were produced, given the scarcity of the work now. 

Robert Filliou Optimistic | Box 3

Robert Filliou

Optimistic Box 3

Remscheid, Germany: Vice-Versand, 1968

12 x 6 x 3 cm.

Unlimited edition

The third of four (though listed as five) Optimistic Boxes that Filliou issued via Vice-Versand* in the late sixties. Box 3 consists of a wooden chess box with brass hinges and clasps, with two printed paper labels. The exterior reads "So much the better if you can't play chess" and on the interior "You won't imitate Marchel Duchamp"

The works were produced as an open edition, though are now quite scarce. Optimistic Box 3 is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Walker Art Centre, the Bonito Foundation, The Emily Harvey Foundation, and many others. 

*A weeks-long focus on the German publisher is forthcoming, with a few solicited entries by artists and collectors. If you wish to contribute a post, let me know. 

George Brecht | The Bottle Bottle-Opener

George Brecht
The Bottle Bottle-Opener
Remscheid, Germany: Edition VICE-Versand, 1980
36 x 7.2 x 7.2 cm.
Edition of 42

André Thomkins | Zahnschutz gegen Gummiparagraphen

André Thomkins
Zahnschutz gegen Gummiparagraphen
Remscheid, Germany: Edition VICE-Versand, 1968
11.7 × 8.6 × 1.9 cm.
Unlimited edition

A cardboard box (each titled uniquely, it would appear), containing stamped rubber with three rubber bands - two of which are designed to go around the wearer's ears and the third extends from their mouth.

Available for € 550. from Raphael Levy, here.