Marcel Duchamp ou le grand fictif by Jean Clair (Apostasis)
Apostasis is not a publisher, but rather a collective of passionate young readers, critical of the publishing industry. Their anonymous members are “in love with books as a political and aesthetic object”, and devoted themselves to publishing texts that are no longer in print, in unique, carefully crafted formats.
Their first publication from 2014 was a reissue of Marcel Duchamp ou le grand fictif by Jean Clair (b. 1940). Originally published in 1975 by Galilée, the book that deals with Duchamp’s intellectual inspirations and his quest for the fourth dimension had been out of print for more than thirty years. Apostasis felt it deserved to be available again, in an aesthetic form that matches its content.
Building Paris was commissioned with the design. The bootleg edition shouldn’t be tainted by profanities like an ISBN barcode or a price tag, nor should it specify the names of the involved personnel like editors and printers. It was printed with two different covers, black and white, each in 500 hand-numbered copies. Building Paris made early use of Kreuz, an industrial display typeface designed by Emmanuel Besse (Large) around an octogonal theme. It’s used in all three of its widths, from Condensed to Extended. Since 2018, the Kreuz Collection is available from Production Type. The text typeface is Suisse BP Serif (2011), the precursor of Suisse Works (2015) by Swiss Typefaces.
