Saint Ghetto of the Loans
Saint Ghetto of the Loans
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About the Book
Saint Ghetto of the Loans is a legendary but little seen masterpiece of French book art from 1950, by the Lettrist Gabriel Pomerand, one of the founders of this group of avant-garde writers, visual artists, filmmakers, and cabaret performers celebrated in postwar, Left Bank Paris. Saint Ghetto of the Loans is an early example of their influential engagement with verbo-visual expression, later labeled “metagraphics.” The long prose poem, which tells a psychogeographic story of the bohemian Parisian neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, appears in segments on the verso (left-hand) pages, while its words and syllables are represented by dazzling pictographs—rebuses—on the facing recto pages.
The second edition is an amplified version of the translation of Saint Ghetto of the Loans that UDP brought out in 2006. It includes translations of the original preface by Pomerand’s friend, the filmmaker Jacques Baratier, and Pomerand’s own quirky summary of his publishing history. This revised edition also includes a new introduction by McKenzie Wark, an updated translator’s afterword by M. Kasper, and a bibliography and filmography of Pomerand’s work.
A special-edition letterpress print of one page from Saint Ghetto of the Loans is available here.
Author
Gabriel Pomerand
In 1945, after wartime on the run and in the Resistance, Gabriel Pomerand (1925-1972) met the young Romanian refugee Isidore Isou and together they launched the Lettrist movement. They espoused a philosophy of constant creative renewal in which, among other things, letterforms were to be the basis, the underlying principle, of future artwork. Along with their followers, Pomerand and Isou instigated dozens of performances, exhibits, and publications in a decade-long burst of energy. Pomerand was the mouthpiece of the movement in its first years. He organized scandalous public lectures, gave reputedly remarkable performances of sound poetry, painted oils, and made an award-winning short movie. His prolific writing over the years included innovative artists books and novels, including Saint Ghetto of the Loans, 1950 (republished by UDP in 2006 with an English translation), as well as screenplays, cultural criticism, and book reviews.
Translators
M. Kasper
Among M. Kasper’s translations are The Subversion of Images by Paul Nougé (Wakefield Press), Ideas Have No Smell: Three Belgian Surrealist Booklets (UDP), The Development of Aerial Militarism by Paul Scheerbart (UDP), and Saint Ghetto of the Loans by Gabriel Pomerand (with Bhamati Viswanathan; UDP). Kasper — who was born in the Bronx (1947), lived overseas for some years, and worked as a librarian for many at Amherst College in western Massachusetts — has also published a dozen artists books, including All Cotton Briefs (2nd ed., Benzene & the Xeric Foundation), Billy! Turn Down That TV! (Diana’s Bimonthly), Plans for the Night (Benzene), The Shapes and Spacing of the Letters (2nd ed., highmoonoon & the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics), Open-Book (UDP), and Kirghiz Steppes: Accumulated Verbo-Visuals (Black Scat). As Christopher Middleton once said, “A Kasper a day keeps the moodles away.”
Bhamati Viswanatham
Bhamati Viswanathan is an independent legal scholar. She was awarded a Doctorate of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) and a Masters in Law (LL.M.) by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree, cum laude, from Williams College. She is a trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA; and she is also a trustee of the Williams Asian and Asian American Alumni Network. She resides in Boston.
Bhamati has recently written a book entitled Cultivating Copyright: How Creative Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive the Digital Age (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Press: July 2019). Bhamati is passionate about educating creators and creative industry participants about the value and usefulness of intellectual property rights, and she is particularly committed to helping empower artists of color both at home and in the developing world.