siglio

Our editions of ephemera are simply made cards, posters, broadsides, pamphlets and/or booklets, created in collaboration with artists and writers whose work we admire.

Inspired by Dada and Surrealist printed matter, Fluxus in general and Dick Higgins’s Great Bear pamphlets in particular, as well as by Wallace Berman’s Semina, we assemble and disseminate editions that we hope delight or surprise, provoke or engage, in some unexpected way.

These editions are not for sale; rather, we happily give them away for free when you place an order directly from Siglio.* When one edition runs out, we create another. The number of each edition will vary, and we’ll send out an email announcement to our mailing list when a new edition is ready.

*Last year we suspended ephemera with all online orders as the fulfillment house made it very expensive to include an extra item. So for now: it’s always available at book fairs (unless we run out), included with online orders of three or more titles, and with all preorders. We will seize the opportunity to make exceptions whenever we can!

This new set includes the first of what we hope will be a continuing (but likely infrequent) series of booklets inspired by and modeled on E. Haldeman-Julius’s Little Blue Books. You’ll find “Magic & Writing: 101 Works to Read for Amusement, Inspiration, and Know-How” by Lucy Ives in a plain ivory envelope along with two cards featuring panels from Chris Russell’s forthcoming (2028!) graphic translation of Witold Gombrowicz’s utterly bizarre and magnetic novel Cosmos, and another postcard quoting a fantastic passage from A Skeptic Milieu Medallion by the artist Jess that begins: “Imagination is the magic, is my nation…”

ephemera no. 1

This edition of ephemera is now available only when ordering The Nancy Book limited edition. It includes a set of twelve different postcards featuring the ink drawings from Joe Brainard’s 1974 “IF,” a Catnatch Press booklet “One Hundred Soldiers for a Revolution,” and Eight Glyph Photographs by Robert Seydel.

ephemera no. 2

Three miniature “Metro Ticket” cards by Keith Waldrop, a tiny chapbook by Peter Gizzi and Elizabeth Willis, a special edition booklet of “Five Hares & Three Ruths from Book of Ruth by Robert Seydel, and five Kapitan Kloss collage cards by Richard Kraft.

ephemera no. 3

This edition is a double-sided poster of “Tube Portraits” by Richard Kraft.

ephemera no. 4

This edition includes a set of five little cards with ten aphorisms from Robert Seydel’s “Flowers & Formulas” (from Book of Ruth), an eight-page color copied booklet called “RS: A Library Portrait” by Richard Kraft, and a postcard by Fluxus artist Alison Knowles from “A House of Dust.”

ephemera no. 5

Wrapped in brown kraft paper and hand-stamped, this edition includes a tiny chapbook of the poem “Yantra” by Henri Michaux that was one of the inspirations for Franck André Jamme’s journey to India as well as the 4-color booklet “Conturbatio: A Selection” by Richard Kraft and a set of cards of seance-inspired collages by artist Selena Kimball.

ephemera no. 6

This edition includes a color 18” x 24” poster with a large collage on each side: “A Study for Ulysses” made from pages from the James Joyce novel, and “Let’s Look Around” made from slivers of pages from children’s primers, both by Richard Kraft.

ephemera no. 7

Works by three artists are featured in this edition: a set of four drawings by Joe Biel, a two-sided card of a bird in flight by Richard Kraft, and a fortune teller (with instructions) by Karen Green using found materials as well as sentence fragments from her book Bough Down.

ephemera no. 8

This set uses the postcard as a piece of correspondence, as an instigation for correspondence, enacting a correspondence, as an interpretation of “correspondence,” whatever that (gorgeous) word means to the artist.  Postcards by Rachel Bers, Jen Bervin, Trinie Dalton, Thomas Evans, Karen Green, Colter Jacobsen, Selena Kimball, Chris Russell and Robert Seydel.

ephemera no. 9

A full-color fold-out 18″ x 24″ poster featuring “The Sea’s Ruler” on one side and “The Sham Squire” on the other, both collages by Richard Kraft using 1960s English football (soccer) comics coupled with language from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

ephemera no. 10

Siglio invited poet and Tantra Song editor Franck André Jamme to create a little collection of works to house envelopes purchased just after the publication of Tantra Song in a market in Rajasthan (see above). Of these works, Jamme says, “I began to make these little things a bit before 1990. Each year, since then, I made 0 or 2 or 3 (so many years just 0). Compared with writing, it was almost incredibly relaxing. So, I actually have never stopped.”

ephemera no. 11

A double-sided, full color 19″ x 27″ poster featuring two collages, “Untitled (The Illiad),” and on the other “Untitled (The Odyssey)” by Richard Kraft (author of Here Comes Kitty: A Comic Opera and co-editor of John Cage’s Diary: How to Improve the World…). Each collage is made from the entire  issue of Classics Illustrated comic book devoted to Homer.

ephemera no. 12

In celebration of siglio’s tenth year, this ephemera edition reproduces “If Nancy Was a Boy” by Joe Brainard, the opening work in the first book siglio published in 2008, The Nancy Book by Joe Brainard. The work is reproduced as a detail on a 12 × 18 poster.

ephemera no. 13

Siglio invited four artists and three poets to contribute a thing “for John Cage.” The envelope includes little works and poems by Anne Carson, Emmy Catedral, David Hannah, Ann Lauterbach, Richard Kraft, Christian Marclay, and Rosmarie Waldrop.

ephemera no. 14

This 17 × 12.75 poster of “EEEEEK” by Richard Kraft commemorates the pandemic.

ephemera no. 14-1/2

The first two issues of The Improbable, an occasional miscellany investigating the rich and varied space between art and literature, published for the Siglio pop-up at the MoMA bookstore in fall 2020. #1 (Time Indefinite) included Sally Alatalo’s image+text taxonomy, Justinus Kerner rendered by Lucy Ives, Ann Lauterbach on the entangled imagination, a filmscript by Wayne Koestenbaum, Ubu Trumps by Richard Kraft, Tausif Noor riffing from a Salmon Toor painting, Mary Ann Caws on snails, a work by Mirtha Dermisache, Mónica de la Torre on concrete poetry and Amanda Berenguer, Tracie Morris’s Afrofuturist seeing of Dick Higgins, Matvei Yankelevich reassessing Dick Higgins within a small press history, and a questionnaire by Elizabeth Zuba.  #2 (Time Is Elastic) included Nicole Rudick on Niki de Saint Phalle, Shiv Kotecha on Nicolas Moufarrege, J. Mae Barizo on the archive, Anaïs Duplan on the Black avant-garde, Douglas Kearney on frequencies, Amaranth Borsuk on Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Clive Phillpot on the Flat Time House, and Rachel Valinsky writing news from home.

ephemera no. 15

“All the Cards Issued to Donald Trump” includes all 10,820 cards artist Richard Kraft issued during the four years of the Trump administration. It is a single visual representation of the cards and annotations in “It Is What It Is.” Offset reproduction of a drawing (at about 50% scale) in a 31.5″ x 8″ accordion folded piece.

ephemera no. 16

Helen Cammock’s book I Will Keep My Soul is one of the primary sites of a larger eponymous work that include a film installation, reading rooms, performances, and text-based works. These three 5 x 7 postcards, tucked in a stamped manila envelope, are miniatures of works that will be installed in New Orleans and Los Angeles.

ephemera no. 17

The newest edition of The Improbable, coedited by Alex Balgiu and Chloé Gourvennec, took its inspiration from Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood’s iconic Womens Work magazine, and made an energetic and imaginative space for artists and writers to commune and converse across time. Lily Greenham’s essay “Lingual Music” is the center of the issue and N.H. Pritchard’s Hoom, published here in its entirety, stretches from end to end. In harmony and counterpoint, the editors have arranged Annea Lockwood’s “Malaman,” bpNichol’s “Drum,” and Ulises Carrión’s “The Orchestra,” along with excerpts from Bass Notes and SiteLines by Helen Cammock, from Songs from the Society of the Mystic Animals by Jerome Rothenberg & Richard Johnnny John, from Absentee, Absentee, Invitee by Min Oh, and from Seesongs by Rosaire Appel, inviting you into a “non-linear and multi-directional reading” experience.

ephemera no. 18

A set of seven postcards, featuring photographs and texts from Sophie Calle’s The Sleepers, tucked into a midnight blue envelope.