During the final stages of An Anthology’s design and assembly, George Maciunas corresponded with Jackson Mac Low and La Monte Young from Wiesbaden, West Germany, where Maciunas worked as a graphic designer for the U.S. military. In a series of letters written between late 1961 and early 1963, we see Maciunas offering multiple design ideas for An Anthology’s cover and binding, including several that would deliberately create a difficult reading experience, and pleading for copies to be sent to him for distribution in Europe. (Mac Low and Young ultimately chose a conventional perfect-bound paperback format whose cover features the book’s title repeated tightly in black against a vibrant red background.) These letters also show that Maciunas was already busy collecting materials for a new series of anthologies that would be published under the name of Fluxus and include many of the same artists brought together in An Anthology.
Courtesy of Billie Maciunas.
