Enzyklopädie von Tlön
“If our foresight is not mistaken, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred volumes of the ‘Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön’”, Jorge Luis Borges wrote 1941 in the epilogue to his tale “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”. More than 50 years later his text was a source of inspiration for a project that Peter Malutzki and Ines von Ketelhodt undertook as the attempt to reconstruct the “Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön”. Within ten years (1997– 2006) they have published fifty volumes.
The fifty volumes are published in an edition of forty numbered and signed copies. They all have a unified format of 12,5 by 20 cm, (8” x 5”), are handbound and usually thread-stitched. The spine thickness varies according to the bulk of the volume. The entire block of all fifty volumes has a length of ca. 63 cm. (ca. 25”.) The covers are of various materials (cloth, paper; printed or unprinted), but all within a range of light to dark gray. One has a leather binding. Each volume carries a spine label, printed with the first four letters of its keyword (providing the keyword is longer than four letters).
A fully illustrated volume of over 250 pages, describing the history and production of the project in great detail, with color illustrations throughout, comes gratis with the purchase of the 50-volume Encyclopedia.
The price is U.S. $16,000.00. Terms can be arranged. Email to inquire about purchase, hellerbkdc@aol.com.
Introduction from Malutzki and von Ketelhodt
Because our system of order was the alphabet, we of course wanted all letters to be represented in the end.
We did realize that we could only do justice to our presumptuous ambition of packing the whole world into fifty volumes in details and fragments; but we hoped the found shards would give a notion of the whole structure. Borges’ story, to which we owed the encyclopedia’s title, played an important role as a source of inspiration, but we could present the idealistic world of Tlön only mirrored on our own world. Already in the first volumes quotes from Borges’ had sporadically flowed in. But only after some years did we realize that, in the meantime, a substantial part of the Tlön-text, distributed over the various volumes, had found its way into the encyclopedia, and we then decided to gradually incorporate the complete text in the encyclopedia; like a red thread, so to speak, that winds its way through the project in intricate paths. Because we had used, besides a German translation, also the Spanish original as well as an English and a French translation right from the beginning, the text in the encyclopedia is now multi-lingual, many-voiced, in part not recognizable at first sight (e.g. on the black endpaper of the ZEIT volume). Just as Borges’ text had written itself into the project almost on its own, and at the beginning not even intended by us, so the project has also influenced and changed its makers. Our life circumstances and locations, our travels (real and fictitious) are all reflected in the project: people and books that influenced us. During the work on the project we have tried to be exhaustive, complex, all-encompassing, encyclopedic; all within our means. Now, after ten years, the fifty completed volumes lie before us, and we see they are actually only a tiny part of a huge ice-berg that is really a book-berg. Most of it we cannot see because it is below the (water) surface, but we are aware of its existence. We see the project connected to a multitude of other books and are happy that, by the incorporation into public collections, it is now literally close to an enormous number of other books.
Images and text strictly copyright Ines von Ketelhodt, Peter Malutzki and Joshua Heller. No reproduction without permission.
Further Notes
1997 The first volumes of the Enzyklopädie are created and introduced at the Frankfurt Bookfair.
1998 The Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt shows the first volumes. 2000 The volumes published to date are awarded the Walter-Tiemann-Prize by the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig.
In his book Typolemik – Typophilie Hans Peter Willberg includes the Enzyklopädie in the ranks of typophile books.
2001 First Tlön on tour journey along the US east coast.
The Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel shows the exhibition Zwischenbilanz im fünften Jahr, in which 25 volumes are presented.
Uwe Warnke writes an article about German book art for The Journal of Artists’ Books, JAB 16 (Atlanta 2001), acknowledging the Enzyklopädie.
2002 Second Tlön on tour journey along the US east coast.
The Arts of the Book Collection of the Yale University Library in New Haven shows several volumes of the Enzyklopädie in its exhibition By Chance: Serendipity and Randomness in Contemporary Artists’ Books.
2003 The Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt and the Museum of Arts & Design New York show volumes of the Enzyklopädie in the Ninth Triennial.
Ulrike Stoltz writes about the Enzyklopädie in her article on contemporary German book art for the Artist’s Book Yearbook 2003–2005 (Bristol 2003).
2004 The Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt shows the 35 volumes published to date in a solo exhibition.
2005 Another trip to the USA, via Chicago to the west coast, we visit Barbara Tetenbaum in Portland.
In the exhibition Jung geblieben in the Deutsche Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Leipzig, the Stiftung Buchkunst also shows volumes of the Enzyklopädie.
2006 The Municipal Museum in Toyota, Japan, shows volumes of the Enzyklopädie in the exhibition 13+: Contemporary Artists’ Books from Germany.
At the end of the year we complete the series, all fifty volumes are now available. 2007 In February we take part in the Book Art Fair of the Codex Foundation in Berkeley and present all fifty volumes for the first time.
In the summer the Public Library San Francisco (Skylight Gallery) shows volumes of the Enzyklopädie in the exhibition 13+: Contemporary Artists’ Books from Germany.
In the fall the Gutenberg-Museum Mainz will show all fifty volumes in the exhibition Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön.
2008 Exhibition Tweede encyclopedie van Tlön. Een boekkunstproject van Ines von Ketelhodt en Peter Malutzki, Museum Meermanno The Hague.
Exhibition Artist’s Books: Ines von Ketelhodt + Peter Malutzki, Galerie der EDITIONALE Cologne.
Colloquium and exhibition Die Erkundung von Tlön, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
[Supplied by Ines von Ketelhodt & Peter Malutzki.]
Public collections:
Bibliothèque Municipale, Saint-Quentin
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Leipzig
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main
Harvard University, Fine Arts Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
Jack Ginsberg Collection of Book Arts, Johannesburg, South Africa
Klingspor Museum, Offenbach am Main
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main
Museum Meermanno, Den Haag
Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover
Public Library, George Arents Collection, New York City
Reed College Library, Portland, Oregon
Rheinische Landesbibliothek, Koblenz
Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main
University of California, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California
Victoria & Albert Museum, National Art Library, London
Wesleyan University, Olin Library, Middletown, Connecticut
Yale University, Arts of the Book Collection, New Haven, Connecticut
Related items: Artists' Books, Catalogue 37 - Summer 2009, Catalogue 38 - Summer 2010, Ines von Ketelhodt, Jorge Luis Borges, Peter Malutzki