Daphne has a 2004 publication date, in an edition of 1000 unique books. As google books says:"In Greek mythology, Daphne is the nymph who runs from Apollo's love, determined not to marry. She ends up a[s a] Laurel tree. In contemporary art mythology, Sigmar Polke is a magician who transforms seemingly unrelated imagery and techniques into whirlwind, idiosyncratic collages that astonish the expectant eye. And then there is this object, Daphne, an artist's book created by Sigmar Polke. An oversize anthology of sources of visual inspiration, a photocopied book that paradoxically reveals the artist's hand, a sketchbook for the machine age--Daphne runs and runs, is caught by the photocopier, and runs some more, only to be bound in the end. Created directly by Polke himself, Daphne is a book with 23 chapters illustrated in large-format photocopies. Each "copy" of the book differs, as each has been photocopied and manipulated individually, pulled from the machine by the hand and watchful eye of the artist. Process is revealed, over and over again. Motifs accumulate page after page, as do small graphic cycles. The printed dot, the resolution, the subject, and the speed all determine and are determined by the apparently unpredictable and often impenetrable secret of a picture whose drafts are akin to the waste products of a copying machine. Even if the motifs in this book provide but a brief insight into the artist's hitherto secret files and archives, it is still a significant one. For the first time, we witness an artist's book with such an aura of authenticity that Walter Benjamin's seminal essay, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, bears consequent re-reading.Produced in a limited edition of 1,000 "copies," each of which has been numbered and signed by Sigmar Polke."
More photos are here, and discussion of the book's production is here (did he really do it all himself?)
In the 1960s (or 50s?) photocopied books were ground-breaking -- using the new technology of the photocopier to either subvert the book format, or to make "democratic multiples". Well, that's my impression of what was going on - but having written that, I realise I know very little about it! Research is needed...perhaps this will become the topic for my essay?
Walter Benjamin's 1936 "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" is mentioned in Reiner Speck's essay on Daphne (it has "such an aura of authenticity" that it hardly seems to be a "copy"), and here, Abigail Thomas quotes Benjamin again (The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity) in discussing the morphing of a banal photocopy into a precious book-object. "What is the ‘original’?" she asks.
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Sometimes the questions are at least as interesting as the objects. I am reminded that my early visual art training consisted of crayons and mimeographed copies of Santa and Easter bunnies, which my teacher at the one-room school obtained on her yearly in-service days. This was in the 1940's.
So if "what is the original?" is one question, I suppose the follow-up might be, "why should there be an original?" I'm thinking of transient art (time-based or whatever one calls performance/landscape/reuseable/food/ etc etc art modes).
We read translations and think we've achieved some important knowledge, we mark up our books and then sell them, losing our own tabulations. We reproduce books and now carve them into amazing shapes; we put them on the web and use html to link to footnotes and outside references. There are far more "inauthentic" reproductions than authentic ones and they have values of their own (duh, I think I just stated the obvious).
Is this a question of authenticity or is multiplicity equally authentic? Does "appropriation" come in somehow?
I just read a 3 Quarks Daily review of Michel Leiris's memoir, Manhood, in which "he hoped his literary method -- a kind of sytematic violation of the author's own privacy -- would develop as others experimented with it... The prospect of reality TV, online confessionals, or the industrialized production of memoirs would never have crossed his mind." http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/08/approach-and-avoid-.html
Another form of reproduction which dummies down. And maybe that's the issue -- the dummying down that happened with the mimeographed Santas as well as happens with online confessionals, no matter how well intended.
Ok, I've used up all the available space for my daily maunders. Thanks, Margaret.
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