ANNIE GRAMAIN — Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, 1979

Offset print on card stock. 14 × 9 cm. Galerie Baudoin Lebon, 36 rue des Archives, 75004 Paris. 7 March – 14 April 1979. Vernissage Wednesday 7 March 1979.

The card does very little, which is part of its interest. On the front, “annie gramain” is repeated in descending diagonal lines until the name stops functioning as signature and begins to operate as form. Language becomes layout. Identity is handled as a typographic unit. On the reverse, the exhibition information runs in a single justified line at the lower edge — as if the administrative fact of the show had been reduced to a footer.

Name as image. Invitation as structure. Authorship as graphic repetition. The gallery, founded in 1976 at 36 rue des Archives in the Marais, developed a programme noted for its range across media and its attention to emerging conceptual practices. This card is a small but precise document of that context — late-1970s Paris, when the invitation was still a site where the work could continue.

More document than promotion. More proposition than souvenir.

Condition: good to very good. Minor handling marks consistent with age.