This collection is offered as a complete 42-title set. For details, get in touch.

nothing

Budapest, self-published (samizdat), 1971. In-folio, 4 pages, card stock; one-colour screen print (light grey); 297 × 210 mm.


The number of copies published is unknown (Endre Tót estimates a few dozen copies). Signed on the back by Endre Tót in blue pen. The layout is vertical.


The front cover is titled “nothing” in lowercase letters. Below the title, there is a black dot. On the reverse side of the first and second panels, along their outer margins, there are two screen-printed text bands (50 mm wide and 297 mm long), where the word “nothing” is repeated from top to bottom. The text on the fourth page is printed horizontally. It reads: “Budapest, May, 1971”, and further down, “Endre Tót . Born in 1937. Sümeg, Hungary”.


Formally, this black dot resembles the one under the title; it could indicate the author’s name. A similar use of signs as a reference to a word or a name can be found in the book Semmi Sem Semmi: Endre Tót uses the cross (x) three times to replace the word “born”.


“Fundamentally, two things: Endre has always been very prolific, and there are certainly dozens of these ‘printed works’ still lying around somewhere. The print run figures may be very different from those indicated. Endre might recall that ‘private editions’ or ‘personal editions’ during the communist era (which, to be clear, was a dictatorship) were, in fact, samizdat publications, whether or not they carried a political message. This means that the author certainly remembers well the illegal methods through which he produced—or, in Endre’s case, had others produce—printed works. (If I remember correctly, he had a printer friend who made some of these works for him in black at the printing house…)”


PETER FARKAS, 21.05.2023 (email)

STAMPED BY ENDRE TÓT

Budapest, self-published (samizdat), 1971.

In folio, 18 unnumbered pages, hardcover, square spine glued binding; offset printing, original imprints of the same stamp.

90 x 270 mm

Edition of 30 copies, numbered and signed by the artist.

Pages 6 and 7 are blank.

In our copy: the back cover is signed and numbered 27/30 in black pen. A label is affixed at the bottom, with the typewritten inscription "Endre Tóth", where the final "h" has been covered with a marker. The label covers the following inscription (visible only when held against the light): "ENDRE TÓT ÁLTAL PECSÉTELVE" (STAMPED BY ENDRE TÓT).


The stamp used in this booklet is the very first rubber stamp that the artist had made, probably in Zürich, with the help of his friend Ilma Rakusa. This stamp was later acquired by Jean Brown, whose archive is now housed at the Getty Museum in California. It is a circular stamp, featuring a smiling portrait of Endre Tót at the center, surrounded by the phrase "I AM GLAD IF I CAN STAMP", with the artist’s signature placed below.

"(...) Indeed, with his 1970 rubber stamp titled I’m Glad If I Can Stamp—in which his face laughed at the viewer from the center—Endre Tót may have been the first on the international scene to truly reveal the nature of mail art stamping. (...)"

Excerpt from:Geza Perneczky – Vive la pusillanimité culturelle ! The Mail Art Movement in Hungary.

This excerpt from Geza Perneczky's text was translated by us from German.

semmi sem semmi

Budapest, self-published (samizdat), 1971.

In-folio, 16 pages, semi-rigid cover, staple binding, a double-sheet cutout (in the middle of the book); black and white offset printing.

Edition of 50 copies, signed and numbered by the artist.

Our copy is numbered 41 and signed in pencil on page 12, which serves as the Impressum, with the Hungarian inscription:

"50 számozott nyomat a művész aláírásával" (50 numbered prints signed by the artist).

All pages are gridded by Endre Tót. The grid lines are blue-gray, except for the first and last pages, which are gridded in black, as well as a double-page spread measuring 200 x 100 mm, folded in two at the center of the book, forming two squares, held in place by the top staple.

Fragment of a Poem by Kisfaludy Sándor

On the top right of the first page, behind a tracing paper sheet, a fragment of a poem by Kisfaludy Sándor, titled Kesergő szerelem (A Bitter Love?), is reproduced.


SÜMEG

In the center of the page, there is a small black-and-white photograph (35 x 35 mm) depicting a house next to a shop, in front of which two people are posing. The roof is marked with a cross (X) by the artist, and below it, the inscription "itt/here" appears.


SÜMEG SEMMI SEM SEMMI

Below the photograph, a biography of the artist is presented first in Hungarian, then in English. On the word "született" (born) and on the word "born", the same cross is drawn. Endre Tót confirmed this is the house where he grew up in Sümeg. The two people are likely his parents.


On the last page, there is a photograph—a fragment of which is also visible on the first page—showing two hands manipulating an architectural tool. These are the artist’s hands, gridding the pages. (Confirmed by Endre Tót during our visit on September 25, 2023.)

MY UNPAINTED CANVASES

Budapest, self-published (samizdat), 1971.


8 unnumbered pages, semi-rigid cover, staple binding, 205 x 145 mm; black and white offset printing.


Edition of 100 copies.


On the back cover, the inscription reads: "Limited to 100 copies of which this is no."


Our copy is numbered 12 in pencil and signed on the first page.

THE STATES OF ZERO

Budapest: self-published (samizdat), 1971.

12 unnumbered pages, semi-rigid cover, staple binding, 205 x 146 mm; offset printing in grayscale.

Edition of 100 numbered copies.

Our copy is number 17, handwritten in blue ballpoint pen on the back cover.


-----------------------------------------


“BOOKWORKS REVISITED”

by Ulises Carrión, p.8 § 27, in:

"The Print Collector's Newsletter", Vol. 11, No. 1 (March–April 1980), pp. 6–9

"Other artists avoid any resemblance to ordinary books, no matter how specific certain book genres may be. They explore the sequential nature of the book to describe a process, analyze a process, or embody a process.

This includes the following titles: Franco Vaccari, Per un trattamento completo (Italy); Heinz Breloh, Uns zu Grau (Germany); Jaroslow Kozlowski, Lesson (Poland); Helen Chadwick and David Mayor, Door to Door (United Kingdom); Carel Balth, Perception of the Line (Netherlands); Pawel Petasz, Pages of Contemplation (Poland); Jochen Gerz, Recto Verso (Germany); Sanja Ivekovic, Double-Life (Yugoslavia); Endré Tót, The States of Zero (Hungary); J. H. Kócman, Capillarity Book (Czechoslovakia); François Morellet, 90° Deux trames (France); Bruno Munari, An Unreadable Quadrat-Print (Italy); Jiri Kolar, Poem R. (Czechoslovakia); Ulises Carrión, Untitled (Netherlands); Robin Crozier, Portrait of Robin Crozier (United Kingdom); Maurizio Nannucci, M40/1967 (Italy); Michael Peel, Alphabet (United Kingdom); Tony Rickaby, Cast (United Kingdom); John Murphy, Selected Works (United Kingdom); Géza Perneczky, Stamping with Little Objects (Hungary); Dick Jewell, Found Photos (United Kingdom); José Luis Castillejo, The Book of 18 Letters (Spain); Alison Bielski, Twenty Monogrampoens (United Kingdom); Silvie Defraoui, Perquisition, El Tango (Switzerland); Dieter Hagenbach, A House/Une maison/Una casa/Ein Haus (Germany); Knud Pedersen, The New Phantasy (Denmark)."