Mario Merz | Coup.

You are looking at a part of To Mallarmé, by Mario Merz — featured in an exhibit called Shock of the News at the National Gallery of Art.

I took a few liberties with this installation piece & animated it with all four French phrases that I know of which contain the word coup.

Just over 7 meters long, this work references the concrete poem ¹ by Stéphane Mallarmé, entitled Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard [‘A throw of the dice will never abolish chance’].

You can read Mallarmé’s poem in its original typography & shape-styling here.

According to NGA’s press release, Merz ‘lined up stacks of Italian & Arabic dailies from March 2003, when President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum before the invasion of Iraq’ on the nineteenth (my birthday, at that).

Exhibit ends 27 January 2013. ²

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¹ Best exemplified by Alice’s recitation of ‘The Mouse’s Tale.’

² Photography not permitted. (Oops.)
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