Kay Rosen
Mined, 1984/2012
March 6 to April 21, 2012
Potsdamer Straße 97, 10785 Berlin
Kay Rosen
„Mined“, 1984/2012
64 pages
Offset Print on Munken Pure paper
Production: Manuel Raeder, Berlin
Published by Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition
Edition of 500 copies
EUR 20,
MINED was written in 1984, sparked by outrage over the policies of the Reagan administration. The issues explored in the book via language, design, type, and images were not exclusive to this decade nor to the United States, however many references are linked to U.S. history and to idiomatic American expressions. I had protested many of them before and since, but the form of this particular expression of outrage was inspired partly by a graphic design job I had at a small weekly newspaper where I had access to an old-fashioned typography machine which photographically processed strips or blocks of set type. I wouldn’t have a computer for another fifteen years. A hapless chimpanzee at a typewriter (“man monkeying around”) attempts a task far beyond its limitations or understanding and unleashes a stream of events that linguistically play off each other page by page. They eventually cycle back to the chimp through a closed-end tale of revolution (“No Noose Is Good Noose”), militarism, and environmental degradation. At the end the chimp is still trying to figure it out. Kay Rosen, 2012