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Les Antliaclastes

Name: Les Antliaclastes
SKU: LESA-004
Price: 220 EUR
Availability: InStock

SKU LESA-004

Les Antliaclastes brings Alfred Jarry’s pataphysical imagination back into circulation in a late twentieth-century, image-rich form. The 1981 edition issued in Oleyres by the Centre de Recherches Périphériscopiques is not a mere reprint, but a reactivation of Jarry’s verbal and mental universe within a post-Collège context. Henry Meyer “sets the text in images” and gives antliaclastic absurdity a parallel graphic voice. The large cahier format heightens the sense of a playful research dossier, somewhere between artist’s book, pataphysical working document and ceremonial printed object. The stamp or mark of the Pompe à Phynances links the copy to the internal mythology of money, machines and institutions surrounding Jarry’s legacy. This copy is numbered 085 and belongs to the 333 deluxe copies. It is therefore a highly representative object for a collection devoted to Jarry, pataphysical print culture and the late graphic continuation of the avant-garde.

Quantity

Alfred Jarry

Les Antliaclastes

1981 | Oleyres | Centre de Recherches Périphériscopiques

This numbered deluxe copy of Les Antliaclastes is a strong late manifestation of Jarry’s continuing pataphysical force. Henry Meyer’s images, the large cahier format and the Pompe à Phynances mark make it more than a reprint. It is a ritual and graphic object in which Jarry’s absurd science is pumped back into motion.

€220

Condition Report:

In-Depth Study

References & Bibliography

Format

In-4 (Quarto) approx. 25 × 32 cm

Edition Particulars

One of 333 deluxe copies, numbered and bearing the stamp or mark of the Pompe à Phynances.

Print Run

333 Copy Number

No. 085

Inscription

No inscription

Product DETAIL

The text belongs to Jarry’s world of absurd systems, technical wordplay and pseudo-scientific fantasy. The title Les Antliaclastes suggests a group or order connected with pumps, breaks and mechanical or hydraulic imagination, typical of Jarry’s tendency to join erudition and nonsense into a single apparatus. There is no conventional narrative based on psychological development; the core lies in language, concept, naming and the disruption of scientific seriousness. The reader moves through a universe in which technical terms, comic logic and pataphysical institutions reinforce one another. Henry Meyer’s images make that world visible and give the text a rhythm of graphic interventions. The whole functions as a brief illustrated machine of Jarryan absurdity.

ARTISTIC RELEVANCE

Henry Meyer’s contribution matters because he does not merely illustrate Jarry’s text, but translates it into images. His graphic interpretation belongs to the late pataphysical tradition in which drawing, diagram, emblem and book-object acquire a thinking function of their own. The images make the mechanical and pseudo-scientific aspects of the text tangible while joining in its absurd seriousness. The large cahier format gives text and image room to function like a workshop or research board. The edition thus becomes not only a literary document, but also a visual continuation of Jarry’s machine-like thinking.

AVANT GARDE CONTEXT

The avant-garde relevance is very strong because of Alfred Jarry’s central place as the founding figure of Pataphysics. Les Antliaclastes touches the line running from Jarry to the Collège de ’Pataphysique, Queneau, Oulipo and many post-Surrealist experiments. The 1981 edition shows that this legacy was not merely historically preserved, but actively reshaped in small ritual printed objects. The Centre de Recherches Périphériscopiques occupies a peripheral yet precisely appropriate position: it turns the detour into a method. The combination of text, image, stamp and deluxe issue makes the object a late avant-garde relaunch of Jarry’s absurd science.

PLACE IN THE OEUVRE

Within Jarry’s oeuvre, Les Antliaclastes belongs to the smaller, more specialized texts that reveal his obsession with machines, terminology and pataphysical logic. The 1981 edition places the work within a later reception history in which Jarry is read not only as the author of Ubu, but as a source of methods. For Henry Meyer, the project offers an opportunity to interpret the Jarryan world graphically rather than simply accompany it. The publication belongs to a broader practice of peripheral reissues that make forgotten or rare pataphysical texts active again. It is therefore at once homage, interpretation and collector’s object.

PUBLISHING CONTEXT

The edition appeared in 1981 in Oleyres from the Centre de Recherches Périphériscopiques. It was produced as a large illustrated cahier or in-folio pamphlet, paperbound, with Alfred Jarry’s text and images by Henry Meyer. The edition includes a deluxe series of 333 copies, to which this copy belongs. It is numbered 085 and bears the stamp or mark of the Pompe à Phynances. This combination of peripheral publisher, Jarryan institutional language and numbered deluxe issue makes the publication a typical late-pataphysical printed object: limited in circulation, but rich in internal signals.

ANECDOTE

The stamp or mark of the Pompe à Phynances is more than a sign of ownership or limitation. In Jarry’s world, “phynance” points to an entire universe of absurd administration, money, power and pumping mechanisms. That Les Antliaclastes should appear with such a mark intensifies the hydraulic and institutional humour of the whole. Number 085 is therefore not merely a copy within an edition, but a kind of certified component of a fictional machine. The pataphysical joke lies not only in the text, but also in the way the book legitimizes itself.

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