This object edition, designed by George Maciunas for Spatial Poem No. 2 (Direction Event) (1965), continues the map concept used in the design of Spatial Poem No. 1 (1965). Much larger in scale, this foldout “fluxatlas” adopts a playful nautical theme and takes creative license with the scale of various landmasses. The enormous scale of Japan, at left, corresponds more to Maciunas’s estimation of the country’s avant-garde energy than to any geographic reality. This design, particularly its incorporation of graphic details appropriated from seventeenth-century engravings, was one that Mieko Shiomi initially protested. In a letter to Maciunas from around 1966, she wrote, “I’d like to show the people’s direction as transparently and exactly as possible. I’m afraid that too strong power of design’s image can weaken the contents” (Shiomi to Maciunas, ca. 1966, Getty Research Institute, Jean Brown Papers, 890164, box 31, folder 30).
Used by permission of Mieko Shiomi and Billie Maciunas.
