Arthur Köpcke
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Like many of the Fluxus artists associated with Galerie Block, Arthur Köpcke initially took part in the gallery’s soirées at the Forum Theater Berlin: in 1966, he participated in three evenings of the Musikfestival, and in 1970, he took part in the Festum Fluxorum, where his reading/work-piece No. 1: Music while you work (1962) was performed together by Eric Andersen, Marianne Filliou, Robert Filliou, Al Hansen, Valerie Herouvis, Arthur Köpcke, Charlotte Moorman, Tomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Emmett Williams, and Köpcke. The piece calls for the activities on stage to pause as soon as a previously prepared record interrupts the performance. The reading/work-piece No. 1 is also one of the pieces included in the edition Continue…, published by Edition Block in 1972. Based on an existing index card file of the artist’s ideas, Continue… pieces from the years 1958 to 1964 assembles 129 reading/work-pieces by the artist on 70 cards in short notations, sketches, and scores. The collection of reading and work pieces is intended for performance and continuation, whereby the pieces can be combined with each other, as can be read on each of the index cards: “you can put each piece as a way of action for the rest of the pieces.”
The hectographed copies of the ideas are cut by hand, stuck onto black cardboard, and partly colored by Köpcke. So, they’re all a bit different. The special edition of Continue… (Nos. 1–30), made of sturdier cardboard, is stored in a small green suitcase reminiscent of both Marcel Duchamp’s portable museum in a suitcase, La Boîte-en-valise, and Fluxkit (1964), a suitcase published by George Maciunas containing a varying collection of Fluxus editions by various artists. In addition to the concepts on cards, Köpcke has included several pieces as objects in the special edition of Continue…. For example, piece no. 10, Fill with Own Imagination, is included in the form of a plexiglass disc printed with these words. 120 copies of the edition are published in a simpler format in a canvas box. All copies of both editions are numbered and signed.
One year after the publication of the limited edition, Edition Block opened additional exhibition spaces in Schaperstraße next to the gallery rooms in the summer of 1973 with the exhibition Arthur Köpcke. Continue… right next to the gallery rooms. The invitation card to the exhibition reproduces Köpcke’s reading/work-piece No. 37, whose notation unambiguously explains how Continue… is to be understood: “you only participate if you continue this action piece, this principle, otherwise: you are just a spectator.”
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte