Annie Gramain — Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, 1979

Annie Gramain — Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, 1979
Original exhibition invitation

Artist: Annie Gramain
Venue: Galerie Baudoin Lebon
Address: 36 rue des Archives, 75004 Paris
Dates: 7 March – 14 April 1979
Vernissage: Wednesday 7 March 1979
Format: Printed invitation card, double-sided
Dimensions: 14 × 9 cm
Materials: Offset print on card stock
Condition: Good to very good. Minor handling marks consistent with age.

Original invitation card for an Annie Gramain exhibition at Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, 1979. The gallery, founded in 1976 at 36 rue des Archives in the Marais, developed a programme noted for its range across media. This card is a small but precise document of an emerging contemporary art context in late-1970s Paris.

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. More document than promotion. More proposition than souvenir.