Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard / A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance (Sculpture) is a close copy of the 1914 edition of the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem of the same name, but with all the words cut out by laser, in a way that corresponds directly to the typographic layout used by Mallarmé to articulate the text.

A Preface features the entire poem written as a block of text with each line separated by a slash (/). This block-transcription of the Mallarme-Text was carried out 1969 by Broodthaers.  12 double spreads follow, with immaculately cut out windows standing in for the text. When turning the pages, numerous shadows are being generated by the cutouts.

500 copies are produced on paper and 90 copies on translucent paper. The latter come with two sheets of white card cut to the size of the book. 10 copies, unbound, numbered I–X, are engraved with matt grinding standing in for the text on 12 acrylic glass plates. The plates come in an archival cardboard box but can be installed as a frameless-hanging spatial installation.

bibliography:
Stéphane Mallarmé, Un coup de dés jamais n‘abolira le hasard (POÈME) (Paris: Nouvelle Revue Française, 1914)
Marcel Broodthaers, Un coup de dés jamais n‘abolira le hasard (IMAGE) (Antwerp: Wide White Space, 1969)