• Front panel — folded guide cover Art & Language, Too Dark to Read: motifs rétrospectifs 2002–1965, Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, 2002. Exhibition guide front panel, 10 × 15 cm folded: upper third, dense grid of small colour and monochrome reproductions of Art & Language works — paintings, installations, text works, photographs — in muted pinks, blues, greys and whites; centre, black band with white and italic type — "exposition | exhibition | tentoonstelling / 26/01/2002 – 20/05/2
  • Interior spread — yellow ground, trilingual essay Art & Language, Too Dark to Read: motifs rétrospectifs 2002–1965, Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, 2002. Exhibition guide interior spread, unfolded: three panels on yellow ground — left panel in French headed "ART & LANGUAGE" with extended essay on the collective's history from 1966, small colour reproduction of Ferry Sails, 1997, upper right; centre panel in English headed "ART & LANGUAGE / Too Dark to Read" with parallel essay and sm
  • Reverse panel — visitor map Art & Language, Too Dark to Read, Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, 2002. Exhibition guide reverse panel: black ground; left column, trilingual visitor information in small white sans-serif type under "Situation", "Located" and "Ligging" headings giving address, transport links and opening hours; centre, yellow road map showing location of Musée d'art moderne relative to Lille, Villeneuve-d'Ascq and surrounding motorway network, museum marked by arrow; right, address block — "
  • Loose insert recto — CD-ROM notice Art & Language, Too Dark to Read, Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, 2002. Loose square insert recto, 12 × 12 cm: white coated card; bilingual French/English text in small black serif and italic type — "Ce livre Art & Language, Too Dark to Read est accompagné d'un Cd-rom, disponible fin février 2002. / This book is accompanied with a CD-rom which will be available at the end of February 2002"; below, smaller text listing contents: "Compatible Mac + PC: 300 illustrations
  • Loose insert verso — blank Art & Language, Too Dark to Read, Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, 2002. Loose square insert verso, 12 × 12 cm: plain white coated card, entirely blank. Slight creasing and surface marking consistent with placement inside folded guide.
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Musée d’art moderne Lille Métropole

ART & LANGUAGE — Too Dark to Read: motifs rétrospectifs 2002–1965. Musée d’art moderne Lille Métropole, 2002

ART & LANGUAGE — Too Dark to Read: motifs rétrospectifs 2002–1965. Musée d’art moderne Lille Métropole, 2002

£75.00 GBP
£75.00 GBP
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Musée d’art moderne Lille Métropole, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, 26 January–20 May 2002. Original folded exhibition guide and invitation. Colour and monochrome offset printing on coated stock, 10 × 15 cm folded, 30 × 15 cm unfolded. Six-panel concertina fold with reproductions, institutional text in French, English and Dutch, and visitor map to reverse. Accompanied by a separate loose square notice, 12 × 12 cm, relating to the exhibition publication and its forthcoming CD-ROM.

Condition: Very good. Light handling and minor edge wear. The loose insert has slight creasing and surface marking consistent with its placement inside the folded guide.

Founded in Coventry in 1968, Art & Language developed through conversation, theoretical writing, indexing and publication rather than a single recognisable visual style. By the late 1970s the practice had consolidated around Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, working closely with critic and art historian Charles Harrison.

The retrospective did not arrange that history as a settled sequence. Earlier works appeared beside later revisions, partial repetitions and deliberately altered versions, turning the survey back upon the collective’s own systems of classification and remembrance.

The loose notice extends that structure beyond the exhibition. It announces that the catalogue’s Mac/PC CD-ROM — containing hundreds of reproductions and theoretical texts — was not yet ready and would be posted later to purchasers. The retrospective was therefore distributed in stages: museum, folded guide, printed book, promised digital archive.

Ships flat, securely backed and tracked from the UK.

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