denis mizzi bookwork 1997 - 2010
N YX P RESS
NICHOLAS POUNDER Polar Bear Press www.nicholaspounder.com 0417 499 570 [61 2] 9389 7710 BSB 032051 PO Box 3299 Tamarama NSW 2026 AUSTRALIA books@nicholaspounder.com
In 1916, when Johnny Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my studio at the south end of the town at five o’clock on a May morning, we had no idea of the immense possibilities, or of the thorny but successful career that awaited the new invention. george grosz
From the Collection of George Alexander Denis Mizzi and George Alexander have been friends since childhood. Both sons of New Australians— Denis’ family having landed from Malta, and George from Alexandria, Egypt, of Greek and Italian extraction. Alexander and Mizzi grew up in the working class suburbs of Botany and Five Dock where they tasted and endured the reffo-wog perspective of post war antipodean culture. Strange times but plentiful in the land of opportunity. Arts and letters in a peculiar way drew both of them in as they approached their twenties. Mizzi’s path took him early to a Dada style of photomontage. Always visual in practice but often with an alignment or surface of text and spliced utterance. Influences are obvious—John Heartfield, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch and Peter Kennard immediately come to mind. Contemporaries, in the Australian context, are Pete Spence, Antony Figallo, Raimondo Cortese and certainly the late Cornelis Vleeskens. Figallo and Cortese tend to work with the graphic manipulation of text (micrography) with fewer examples of adjusted image. Spence has a foot in both forms. An influence more directly - as a photomonteur - is Peter Lyssiotis, though development of his style is one that has become more lyrical and finished and with an increasingly fine object as the result, especially in the artist book form. What distinguishes Mizzi’s work is the raw, dark and often menacing nature of content and finish—the edges often show and can be either precipice or blade. Alexander persisted with poetry and various experiments dealing with prose, which subsequently lead to a serious reputation as an essayist and commentator in fine arts. Followed some novels, a prize or two, and several slim volumes thrown in. In recent years Alexander has given himself full time to graphic narrative in book form and individual works in sequential tableau. Mizzi’s bookwork is almost a secret among a cognoscenti. His tireless output in small editions over many years have his works barely represented in public collections, and those others of the eight or so copies for each project can be found within a census of the artist’s circle. Throughout their lives the two have stayed in constant contact. Their exchange of process, observation and critical discourse has remained a consistent feature of their relationship. Each of these books has been presented at the time of creation and is central to their exchange. To provide a background the listing below is preceded by the earliest text by George Alexander on Mizzi’s art dating from 1972. At the end of the catalogue is a commentary on Mizzi’s work in the years leading up and including the period of the present collection. The artist’s cv is also attached. We offer here en bloc one hundred and sixty examples of Mizzi’s output between the late 1990’s and 2010. A$6,000.00 Nicholas Pounder December 2018
George Alexander introduces Denis Mizzi at a University of Sydney Poetry Event in 1972 I’ve been asked to preface some of the works of Denis Mizzi that will be presently shown. Shown, not read. So the words aren’t going to deliquesce into the folds of mellifluous Voice. The words are exposed in the quick-freeze of the page-space: “the ineluctable modality of the visible”, as Spike Milligan, I think, said. Denis doesn’t make claim to any detachable doctrine of poetics, as such, so what I’d like to do is give a number of brief, orienting landmarks, so that you can draw tangents to whatever central concoction you want to draw your tangents to… The work,it seems to me, belongs – with varying degrees of aloofness – to the family of concrete/visual poetry permutational verse collage conceptual art CONCRETE poetry communicates its own visual structure. It can’t be embellished by recitation. Writing we are beginning to see is not merely a mediation or notation of speech. Linguists now tell us that no phoneme corresponds to the spacing of words; and no grapheme to accents of pronunciation. So here the literary sign is given iconic, as well as indexical dimension. In some of the slides you will see, the graphic reinforces the phonic; at other times it does without it altogether. That’s why there is a lot of play with voiceless math symbols and eccentric punctuation marks. In pure, self-referential object-writing, signs relate to meaning by resemblance; sign vehicle = the thing signified. In this sort of poetry there is no conventional syntax, tense scheme etc. Words become objects and are worried around space. They are shattered and restored to the pictorial. (At times he seems to be doing a Denis-the-Ripper on words leaving their intestines neatly arranged on the bed-sheets of the page.) The roots of the words are often enacted, rather dissolved into sound. PERMUTATIONAL – this related to the combinatorial games, combining units of words or anatomizing component syllables – a bit in the style of Raymond Roussel, and the militantly avant-garde Tel Quel group. Writing as presentation, not representation. Stories can thus be generated by homophones, deformed and extended. Finally, I see the artworks as CONCEPTUAL (or at least ideational). Not in the mode of Joseph Kosuth or the Art-Language Press, who treat abstraction and art propositions as philosophical-linguistic problems, using the analytic techniques of the British school – Russell and AJ Ayer. I see this work as closer to Duchamp’s ironic instructions, or the cryptic lettered canvases of Shusaku Arakawa, or the photo-poems of the Japanese surrealist Kitasano Katue. So I leave you now to a dark even more literal than the one you are in at present. Lights please. Slides.
1997 1. Logic Death. Twenty-four sheets, rectos only, with photomontage. from an edition of twenty copies signed by the artist—this copy inscribed to fellow artist, george alexander. A4 [297 x 210][48] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 2. Mechanics. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1997. A4 [297 x 210] [14] pages, rectos only, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with clear acetate cover. Marked “Edition of 2” this copy inscribed to george alexander. 3. The End of the Line. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1997. A work dedicated to Kobo Abē. Photomontage. one of twenty copies — this copy inscribed to george alexander. A4 [297 x 210] [48] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 4. Transformation Structures. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1997. dedicated and inscribed to george alexander. A4 [297 x 210] [54] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with clear acetate covers. from an edition of two copies signed by the artist. 5. X,Y,Z For Stefan Themerson. [No place: the artist], 1997. Text and photomontage exploring a visual poetic dedicated to the founder of Gaberbocchus Press. one of twenty copies signed by the artist. this copy inscribed to george alexander. A4 [297 x 210] [46] pages spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers.
1998 6. Armour Plated. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1998. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. inscribed to george alexander. from an edition of four copies signed by the artist. 7. The Mother of Invention. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1998. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of four copies signed by the artist.
1999 8. Anatomy Part Two. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 9. The Circular Ruin. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 10. Grids. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. Schematic patterns, illusions and structural diagrams. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 11. Inner. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 12. Into Nothingness. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [32] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 13. Investigations. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 14. Measure for Measure. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 15. Measuring Infinity. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into printed wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 16. Memory. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 17. Mortality. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist.
18. O and Other Afflictions. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 19. Ordeal. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [8] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 21. Points and Lines. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [32] pages, sewn into titled wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 22. Remove Yourself. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Photographs by Mizzi. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 23. Stasis. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. Appropriated diagrams with text juxtaposed. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 24. The Uninhabited. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. Visual responses to Paul Auster’s translations of AndrÊ du Bouchet. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 25. What ? [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 1999. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist.
2000 26. Alchemy. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Dedicated to Peter Lyssiotis. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of nine copies signed by the artist. 27. Alphabets. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [60] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with clear acetate covers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 28. Anatomy of an Author. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist.
29. Atrophy. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 30. Cell. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. Sixteen pages for sixteen images and text. A5 [210 x 150] spiral bound along the top edge with clear acetate cover sheet. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 31. The Chair.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. Photomontage and text. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 32. Demystifying Things. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 33. Echo’s Bones. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 34. Endgame.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [8] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of ten copies signed by the artist. 35. In/Exterior Windows Framed. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, sewn into illustrated wrapper. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 36. In Other Words. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 37. Labyrinth [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 38. Morbidity.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress,2000. Photomontage . A4 [297 x 210] [2o] pages on high grade gloss paper sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 39. Mortality Tables. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 200o. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist.
40. Outside Room/Room Outside. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies (this being one of two copies in colour) signed by the artist. 41. Transition Piece — Square to Round. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 42. Rules. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 43. View Mirror. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 44. X 8 x 10 [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2000. A4 [297 x 210] [28] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist.
2001 45. A Cloud in Trousers. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [10] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 46. A Mania for Solitude. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of ten copies signed by the artist. 47. Area. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 48. Absurd World Grid. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 49. Alchemy of the Word: Delirium II [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Text, image and collage. “These images have been inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Delirium II” from Une saison en enfer.” A4 [297 x 210] [30] pages of various stocks—photographic papers, foil laminate, and art papers, spiral bound into clear acetate wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist.
50. Defence System at Work. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 51. Extreme Night/Self Effacement. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage and photomntage in colour and black and white. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 52. Figure 8 Lemniscate. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 53. Grid Performance. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 54. I.........Identity. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [8] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 55. In the Light of the Evidence. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, rectos only sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 56. Know Thyself. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 57. Letters to Myself. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of ten copies signed by the artist. 58. Lost Dada Works. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage in colour. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 59. Memory. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage and texts. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies [this being one of four in colour] signed by the artist.
60. No Exit Poetry. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 61. Nothingness. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 62. Not I. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage and texts. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers with artwork by Monica Mizzi. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 63. Opaque. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage. 130 x 80 [14] pages, rectos only sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of fourteen copies signed by the artist. 64. Paranoia.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 65. Seeing Things. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Collage and texts—altered diagrams and anatomical drawing, some with colour. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 66. So/Words. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 67. Spiritual Letters (series 2, #1-5) by David Miller. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. Texts by Miller with photomontage by Mizzi. Includes a bibliography of Miller’s works. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of copies . 68. Structure. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 69. The World Incident/Someone Dies. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2001. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2002 70. Book W. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 71. Lost Op Art. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 72. Lost Surrealist Works. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. Eleven images spiral bound. Dedicated to Robert Desnos. A5 [210 x 150]. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 73. Lost Supremacist Works. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. Seven pages rectos only amounting to nine images in all including wrappers. A5 [210 x 150] sewn Japanese style. from an edition of four copies signed by the artist. 74. Mute Doubt. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2002. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 75. Night Watches/The Uknown/His Other Self/ Nothing.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. this copy inscribed to fellow artist, George Alexander. Collage and text. [170 x 110] Fourteen pages, rectos only fastened with brass split pins into illustrated card wrappers. 76. Pataphysics. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2002. Homage to Jarry and Ubu. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist.
2003 77. Black Mirror. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2003. Images inspired by the poetry of Roger Gilbert-Lecompte. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist.
78. Cutting Cords. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2003. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 79. Synthetic Formwork. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2003. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 80. Vocubulaire. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2003. Photomontage, texts and diagrams. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist.
2004 81. Broken Index of this Work. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 82. Can We Always Believe Our Own Eyes ? [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 83. De-mo-li-ti-on—The Catholic Effect. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2004. Photographs by Denis Mizzi. A4 [297 x ] [20] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 84. Elsewhere. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004. “For Paul Nappa.” A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 85. Index A B C Z. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of four copies signed by the artist. 86. I or O. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004. Manipulated diagrams and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
87. Night Shadow. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2004. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of four copies signed by the artist. 88. Shadow Boxing [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2004. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 89. What Happened. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2004.from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. [150 x 100] [48] pages collage and text sewn into illustrated card wrappers. 90. Work and Death. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2004. Fifteen texts and images. A4 [297 x ] [16] pages, spiral bound with heavy clear acetate cover sheet. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2005 91. Abstraction.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 92. The Anatomy of Air Ozone Hole Quantum Reality Factor.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage on various papers. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 93. Concrete Poetry.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Eighteen texts and images. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 94. 8 o X Book. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Phot omont age, appropriations, alignments and texts. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, sewn. an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 95. End Manifesto. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. A4 [297 x 210] [28] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
96. Has Death [8]. [Sydney South, NSW]: n6xpress, 2005. Photomontage. Classic anti-war Mizzi. A4 [297 x 210 ] [24] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with clear acetate cover. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 97. Idea As Art As. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 98. Index of This Work. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Photomontage, appropriations, alignments and texts. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 99. The Lost Books of Denis Mizzi. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. A4 [297 x 210 ] [24] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with a clear acetate cover. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 100. Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. An homage and appropriation of René Daumal’s Mount Analogue [Vincent Smart, London, 1959]. Mount Analogue was first published posthumously in 1952 in French as Le Mont Analogue. Roman d’aventures alpines, non euclidiennes et symboliquement authentiques. A4 [297 x ] [30] pages of text and image on various stocks, spiral bound with a clear acetate cover sheet. from an edition of twelve copies signed by the artist. 101. [...97V3197...].[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [18 ] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of seven copies signed by the artist. 102. Nothing.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 103. Puzzle Book 1. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. A4 [297 x 210 ] [16] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 104. So Total.[Sydney South, NSW[: nyxpress, [c.2005]. Anti-war photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages on art paper, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers.
105. To Be Part I: Conjunction of Opposites. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage. A5 [28] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. 106. Ubu.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 107. [Untitled]. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Skull and skeletal images. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, sewn into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of twelve copies signed by the artist. 108. [War]. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers with clear acetate cover. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 109. Where There Seems to be No Reason. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2005. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2006 110. Analysis. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Fourteen Numerical configurations. A4 [297 x 210] [14] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 111. Atomic Infinity.[Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Photomontage, altered radiography. A4 [297 210] [14] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 112. The Body in Question. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Photomontage. Altered schematics, aerial perspectives and scale. A4 [297 210] [28] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 113. Concrete Manual. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Ten text images A5 [210 x 150] [20] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of five copies signed by the artist. 114. Concrete. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Eighteen images. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
115. Dogs of War. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Twenty texts and images. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 115. Do-It-Self Manual. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Schematics and montage. A4 [297 x 210] [26] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 116. False Senses it is O No. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 117. House I. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 118. Human Skeleton Skull. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Photomontage, altered radiography. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 119. i oo u nothing. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Twelve scripts and images. A5 [210 x 150] [16 pages sewninto illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 120. The Limit. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Adjusted schematics and drawings. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 121. The Limit. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Eighteen images. A4 [297 x210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 122. Lost Concept Art. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Thirty-four texts and images. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound into illustrated card wrappers. 123. Lost Extremity. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. A rendering and response to Willis Barnstone’s translations of Antonio Machado. A4 [297 x 210] 14 pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
124. Man. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 125. Me. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006.Self portraits. A4 [297 x 210][18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 126. Map Reading. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 127. Open or Chaos Shit. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Sixteen texts and images. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 128. Open or Chaos. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [16] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 129. One + One = Millions. [Sydney South, NSW] nyxpress], 2006. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [26] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 130. The Night. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. A4 [297 x 210] [18 ]pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 131. Novel Books to Travel to Distant Locations. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Collage and altered photographs. Codex and binding based images with occasional anatomical or typographical interventions. A4 [297 x 210] [36] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 132. Pataphysics: Symposium on Internal Stress. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 133. + II II +. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. A4 [297 x 210] [14 ]pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
134. Rooms. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Twenty images. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 135. Sectional Views. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Diagram, amplification and detail. Photomontage/strategic alignment. A4 [297 x 210] [22] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. 136. Seen in the Hand [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2006. Collage. A4 [297 x 210] [26] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 137. Shadows. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210] [32] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 138. 25/28/Nein/10/3/54/7/14/34/51. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Colour collage. A4 [297 x 210] [6] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 139. The Void is Full of Itself.[Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006.Dedicated to fellow artist Terry Reid. Twenty photomontages. A4 [297 x 210] [30] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 140. Voyage 0 [Hour of Lost Dada]. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2006. Twenty photomontages. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2007 141. Book of Chance. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2007. A4 [297 x 210] [22] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 142. Concept. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2007. A4 [297 x 210] [2o] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2008 143. 8 [34567] [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008. A4 [297 x 210] [14] pages pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 144. The End. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008. A4 [297 x 210] [24] pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 145. House I. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008. A4 [297 x 210] [20] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. . from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 146. Materials. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of six copies signed by the artist. 147. Point of View. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008.Homage to Edmond Jabès. A4 [297 x 210] [10] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 148. Raw 8. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2008. A4 [297 x 210] [14] pages pages spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
2009 149. Black Rot: The Dark Edition [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Collage and text. A4 [297 x 210] [14] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 150. Ex the Sky Architects. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Colour photomontage. A4 [297 x 210 ] [6 + ] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 151. Magnetism and Electricity. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Cartographic and topographical collage in colour. Twelve pages. A4 [297 x 210 ] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist
152. Nothing. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Colour photomontage. A4 [297 x 210 ] [12] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 153. Shit Art Odyssey. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2009. [16] pages. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 154. Texit [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2009. Fourteen pages. A4 [297 x 210] spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 155. Things Fall A-Part. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Colour collage and text. A4 [297 x 210 ] [12] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist 156. Through a Glass Darkly / Abracadabra. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2009. Photomontage. A4 [297 x 210 ] [16] pages spiral bound into illustrated wrappers.. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist
2010 157. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTUVWXYZ. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2010. Twenty images. A4 [297 x 210 ] [18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 158. Concrete. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2010. Eighteen images. A4 [297 x 210] [18] pages, spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 159. Dogs of War. [Sydney South, NSW]: nyxpress, 2010. Photomontage and texts. A4 [297 x 210 ] [18] pages, spiral bound into illustrated wrappers. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist. 160. With Attitude. [Sydney South, NSW: nyxpress], 2010. Am attack on Wall Street. A4 [297 x 210] [12] pages, spiral bound. from an edition of eight copies signed by the artist.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Weather Reports from the Void
No surprise that his very first solo show at the Mori gallery was called Endgame (1980). But Mizzi has always kept a few different things, styles and preoccupations going at the same time.
If I say nothing about what I found there, it is because I understood very little. All the words were familiar to me, and yet they seemed to have been put together strangely, as though their final purpose was to cancel each other out. I can think of no other way to express it. Each sentence erased the sentence before it, each paragraph made the next paragraph impossible. It is odd, then, that the feeling that survives from this notebook is one of great lucidity. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
For Mizzi is as political as he is existentialist: he hates war and War seems to be waged by that half of us that wants to die in a catastrophe that will set life back to its beginning and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations. [I met Denis’s father when Denis and I were at school together in Darlinghurst, several lifetimes ago. Denis’ late father, a lovely quiet man who had been in Malta during the war, and whose way of smoking, even in Sydney, was shaped by that experience in the trenches. You had to cup the burning tip of the cigarette in such a way that no German airplanes would have something to fire at.] So war, and the suffering it brings, was a reality. Mizzi shows us how that might look and feel: the optic is lethal, but unshrill; beatific, not bitter.
The title is typical Denis Mizzi– humour, understatement and bite. It’s like: Lighten up, guys, it’s only the end of the world ! For most of us it’s, Nothingness ? No thanks. Let’s not go into that right now. In that great 1953 noir film The Big Heat, Gloria Grahame says about a fleabag hotel room: “Hey, I like this. Early nothing.” Denis Mizzi’s representations of rooms and buildings are like bombed-out Nissan huts from some strife-torn hinterland of the imagination— an antiplace where memory is boundless and so the negative/ loss, never quite disappears. “Early nothing.” Words like “NOT”, “NO”, the negative, proliferate throughout his work, and photo negatives too, and absent presences, the self as empty shell in a shadowland. The void threatens everything we hold dear. We come to that metaphysical space with an assumption of fullness. Will it offer transcendence or annihilation ? As novelist Italo Calvino writes in The Castle of Crossed Destinies: “The kernel of the world is empty, the beginning of what moves the universe is the space of nothingness, around absence is constructed what exists”. Nothing is the glass we all beat against, the obdurate unknown, the towering darkness that stands against us. From this nothing, every painting and every book sets forth. And every journey through forests, battles, treasures, banquets, bed chambers, brings us back here, to the centre of an empty horizon. Probably art is the only thing that can articulate this noble failure about itself. Does Nothing hold the key to the meaning of DM’s work ? And if there’s no meaning then the world is absurd. Isn’t it ? Denis Mizzi’s art is about life, death, love, humour and authenticity. It’s also centrally about “nothing” because it commenced in disappointment, both religious and political. Religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to, as he sees it, deal with this problem of nihilism; political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for a coherent ethics. He is, I’d say - but I know he hates labels - an ethically committed political anarchist. Let’s just say it’s his way of thinking out loud about what’s surprised him on the edge, at the margin, inside the labyrinth or the whale. And it is all brought to beautiful formal and poetic play in this stunning “Much ado”: a survey exhibition of some 40 years of very productive work: “About Nothing”: the nothing before and after existence, yes, that big hole we dig for ourselves, and end up in; but also, I would say, an investigation into (a) the void at the heart of power, and (b) the blankness at the core of capitalism, and (c) the nihilism of war.
His art, it seems to me, argues for a conception of meaninglessness understood as the achievement of the everyday, and it’s a view that redeems him from the need for any other redemption. And his cutups and collages recycle culture’s used images, sometimes making ironic use of them, and often injecting the surreal inherited from that literary tradition. Look closer and photos and X-rays from science manuals are not collaged but composted together to look like blocks of concrete or breeze blocks built of ice. Along the way Mizzi - like Max Ernst or Alberto Giacometti before him -puts human impermanence against geological bedrock or galactic remoteness. See parts of bodies obliterate their features as though the abrasion of glaciers has left only teeth and fingerprints, vertebrae. There’s much hatred of late capitalism seen through the cracked spyglass of political Dada in black, red, grey. Black humour is his obliquely critical take on everything, and humour usually brings about a change of situation. Absurd art is not purely a comic form, because there are tragic elements to absurdity. Absurdity is more accurately defined as nihilistic farce, proving Karl Marx’s point that history appears the ‘first time as tragedy, the second as farce’. Do we cry or laugh ? vladimir: Suppose we repented. estragon: Repented what ? Oh... (He reflects.) vladimir: We wouldn‘t have to go into the details estragon: .Our being born ? Vladimir breaks into a hearty laugh which he immediately stifles.– Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. So there are holes in history that we can’t face, like the genocides and the disasters going on in the news every night. And there are holes, too in language. Mizzi reads widely - Beckett and Rimbaud, Lautréamont or Artaud, - he has long been interested in writers who all seemed to be chewing their way to the end of language. At the end of language, Mizzi plays with words, plays with the way they look and the way they sound, uses them as material, turns them inside out. To arrive at his neverland of fragments, a place for wordless things and thingless words. But once you get to the end of language you go on, even though you can’t go on.
Samuel Beckett: “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.” I keep thinking of Beckett (with his interminable spiel about the unnameable) or Giacometti (with his endless kneading of the clay as a dialogue with the void) when I see this work: poets of entropy, uncompromising in the face of all things falling apart. Each paragraph or figure in a picture is a freeze-frame of this breakup. Through concrete poetry, photography, mail art, video and countless collages and photomontages Denis Mizzi destabilises the traditional perceptions of space. In this exhibition you will see how he explores space as an arena where self and other, inside and outside, policed space and free-space, swap places. Buildings deconstruct themselves. Curious about how we are “constructed” as observers, Mizzi locates weak points in the structure, not in order to collapse those constructions but to demonstrate the extent to which the structures depend on these flaws/ floors. The floor and ceiling switch by a kind of sleight of eye. The window frames disappear and then return re-doubled, a sort of prison within the prison. (Like Crusoe building walls to define himself on his island). From the beginning Denis Mizzi has been dealing with endgame situations. (His first solo exhibition was entitled Endgame at Mori Gallery, 1980.) His early work from the early 1970s crossed conceptual art with an intense sense of closed existential horizons; art forms threatened by the tragedy made possible by ideals. I recall a focused set of themes, a vocabulary of shadows, clouds, lines. By Remnants (First Draft, 1986) the work, - despite the furtive quality of surveillance - takes on a seductive dreaminess. With acrylic, gluestick and crayon, the abstract vocabulary, no longer didactic, becomes the carrier of emotion. By the late 1980s the work became less defensive and more demanding. Often blurred to the edge of decipherability and with a grubby, matte look, as if the pictures were made from the wax and ash of a thousand guttered candles—is this a cloudscape or a crowd or a buried city ? With eyes as sensitive as film, formlessness and transparency are rendered by the X-ray effect. Figures emerge in the eerie quality of black light. Denis Mizzi makes forms, pressures, forces, scale, take on social meaning. The effect: are those buildings melting or just my eyeballs ? A constant in the thousand hand-made books are the way pages are often locked in by frames and grids, cages, lattices, chessboards – the whole Modernist dream transformed into an oppressive prison. Just look at his virtuoso use of positive and negative spaces in the collages. Likewise the flickering track of animation: so frames (the frame of the page, the cinema cell, the contact-sheet) ripple and make us aware of the layering and linear progressions of cinema. Some pages or canvases are heavy with tar. We began in darkness, and even in the light we carried that darkness. By Ground Zero (Tin Sheds, 1989), the paintings, drawing, photomontages emerge into the light, a kind of positive. As though the stroke of noon is made to coincide with the stroke of midnight. One piece, called ‘Time Must Have a Stop’, puts forward the notion of the degree zero of narrative: what happens when time, whose measure is movement and change, stops. This is the limit-situation of human consciousness too
The form of the work lent itself more often to international venues —London, Kyoto, Milan, Budapest, Ontario—rather than local ones. As mail art or work often gracing the covers of prestigious poetry presses in Japan, the States and the UK. In 1984 he curated SOFT ATTACK, Artists Against Militarism (including Pam Debenham, Ian Howard, Margaret Morgan, Victor Rubin, Ruth Waller, Geoff Weary, among others.) Blanchot calls for a silence that is ethical toward the disaster, saying: It is not you who will speak; let the disaster speak in you, even if it is by your forgetfulness or silence. Mizzi had developed a kind of sub-dimension of representation, an infra-red of human consciousness. It is as if the images are trying to show what cannot be shown: the absolute zero of energy, the Wärmetod. Mizzi conveys this with the haiku-power of snow falling on stones. Mountains hover, islands float. This work is compelling and distancing at the same time. The a-chromatic insistence of Ground Zero is as ancient and monotonous as human suffering; but its visuals are oddly beatific and sweet. His blitzed out monochromes I find brutal and exquisite, theatrical, yet hushed. I really dig them even with, even because of, their unresolved ambiguities. Their art brut textures are like updates of Ian Fairweather for the Nuclear Age; Kiefer minus the Hermetic philosophy. I even think of Gerhard Richter’s “unpaintable” pictures of the arrests and deaths of the BaaderMeinhof guerrillas. The images have been wiped away somehow, as if time, distance and cover-ups have obliterated reality in a colourless haze. So, Much Ado About Nothing: three and a half decades: the late 1970s/80s/90s … how the calendar curls ! How does one go forward, year after year, as Denis Mizzi has done ? It’s hard for everyone in the Australian art scene to have “a career” – a word with its roots in horse-racing. Careering along ! And there’s little validation from the art councils or prize-giving bodies. And not one to “micromanage” his strategic rise, or market the work with his A-list contacts, Mizzi has just got on with it. Modestly busying himself in the studio, like a monk in a monastery, years at a time, talking behind closed doors to his ghosts: dead parents, errant lovers, long-gone artists - and responding to the fire alarms of politics: ecocide, everyday fascism, refugees, cruelties of all kinds. Less a “career”, then, than an ongoing struggle, a kind of arm-wrestle between optimism of the artmaking will, and pessimism of the political intellect. George Alexander
Above: panel from “The Denis Mizzi Wall” — works by George Alexander. Exhibited January 2018 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.