ABECEDA [Alphabet]
"In Nezval’s Abeceda, a cycle of rhymes based on the shapes of letters, I tried to create a 'typofoto' of a purely abstract and poetic nature, setting into graphic poetry what Nezval set into verbal poetry in his verse, both being poems evoking the magic signs of the alphabet." -Karel Teige
"The 1926 book Alphabet (Abeceda) is a landmark achievement in European modernism. Its frequent reproduction in exhibition catalogues and scholarly articles has made it a key symbol of Devetsil (1920-ca. 1931), the Czech artists' collective within whose ranks the book was conceived, and its importance is increasingly measured in international terms as well. The book consists of a series of rhymed quatrains by Devetsil poet Vitezslav Nezval, titled and ordered according to the letters of the Latin alphabet. Facing each set of verses is a Constructivist photomontage layout by Karel Teige, a painter turned typographer who was also Devetsil's spokesperson and leading theorist. Teige developed his graphic design around photographs of dancer and choreographer Milada (Milca) Mayerova, a recent affiliate of the group, who had performed a stage version of "Alphabet" to accompany a recitation of the poem at a theatrical evening in Nezval's honor in April 1926... The project to create a new alphabet epitomizes the proselytizing attitude of avant-gardists in various fields in the years after World War I. From Dada poetry to Constructivist architecture and design, from calls to overhaul theater to revolutions in literary theory, a panoply of experiments took the alphabet as their model or target and disclosed the potency of this elementary linguistic structure as a trope for creative renewal and social revolution. With its large print, childlike verses, and an instructional sequence that matches a single letter in text and image on every page spread, Alphabet presents itself as the class reader for that internationally sponsored course in universal reeducation." (Matthew S. Witkovsky, "Staging language: Milca Mayerova and the Czech book Alphabet").
"An important landmark of the Czech Avant-Garde and ... one of the first conceptual artists' books"; an "important book which attempted to challenge both conventional artistic hierarchies and class distinctions with an art that could be equally embraced by a professor or a street cleaner" (The Photobook).
