Rewriting the World highlights the artist books of Lettrism, the underrecognised precursor to Fluxus and the Situationist International movement.
Founded in Paris in 1945 by Isidore Isou (1925–2007), the Lettrists transferred the meaning of words to letters and signs, in a way that radically expanded literature and art and anticipated later developments in conceptual art, concrete poetry, experimental cinema and comics. Members of the group included Maurice Lemaître, Gabriel Pomerand, François Dufrêne, Gil J. Wolman and Guy Debord who went on to found the Situationists. Through essays, historical documents and extensive illustrations reproduced in beautiful risograph images, Rewriting the World accompanies the first major US exhibition (at the Center for Book Arts in New York) dedicated to the Lettrist book and positions Isou and Lettrism as foundational to the history of artists’ books.
Center for Book Arts, 80pp, 21cm x 27cm, illustrated paperback, 2026
