Arthur Köpcke
Piece 39 (1950)

In the fall of 1974, Arthur Köpcke traveled to New York for his exhibition Continue… at the René Block Gallery. Here, the title page for his second edition published by Edition Block was printed, and Köpcke also created and signed the prototype in New York. Piece 39 (1950) is conceived as a portfolio of six drawings, collages, and montages that emerged from the execution of reading/work-piece No. 39. Köpcke refers to pieces, concepts, and scores intended for performance as reading/work-pieces. Two years earlier, Edition Block had published the limited edition Continue… Pieces from 1958 to 1964 with 129 reading/work-pieces on index cards as Edition No. 33. The second edition published by Edition Block, Piece 39 (1950), now implements the concept of Piece No. 39, whose handwritten instructions can be read on the portfolio’s title page screen print. The artist’s comparatively conceptual piece invites viewers to engage with possible responses to Malevich’s black and white squares. Köpcke’s score, which presents the use of a line as an adequate form of response, continues to unfold the possible conclusions he develops from Malevich’s Suprematist painting. Ultimately, readers have a wide range of options for implementing the score – in addition to drawings with variations of vertical lines and changing color backgrounds, one possible conclusion is also its translation into language:
“or this consequence:
you take for example two words from each line of any text and put them together in the succession they appear in the text you choose.
a) you build a square with them or b) you build a vertical line.
or this consequence:
a) your build a square with numbers or b) you build a vertical line with numbers.
another consequence:
you use the word of the object for the object.
or this consequence:
a) you build a square with matches or b) you build a vertical line with matches.
or this consequence:
you try it with other materials.”
The excerpt makes it easy to understand why the six sheets that Köpcke produced himself as prototypes based on the notation of Piece 39 (1950) show such different results. The notation concludes with the instruction “Continue…”, followed by Köpcke’s signature and the numbering of the edition, whereby the instruction seems to refer not only to the execution but also to further conclusions. Although all title pages were printed and signed in New York in 1974, only part of the planned edition of 50 copies was actually produced.
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte