OLDENBURG, Claes
Great Bear Pamphlet #04. Injun & Other Histories (1960)

Facsimile edition. Originally published in 1966 by Something Else Press.

A daunting collection of early writings and illustrations by Claes Oldenburg, presenting gnomic visions of an earlier America.

Originally published by Something Else Press between 1965 and 1967, the Great Bear Pamphlet series was envisioned by founding editor Dick Higgins as a “poor man’s keys to the new art,” or a means of exposing the most vital work of the time to a mass-market audience, and vice versa. The series made uncompromisingly radical work maximally accessible, with slim, chapbook-like publications of a mostly uniform, pared down design. Taken together, the pamphlets constitute a firsthand survey of the sixties avant-garde (Higgins, Barbara Moore, and Emmett Williams all had a hand in the editorial process) that is both sweeping and utterly unique, transmitting a still-vibrant signal of expanded possibility in art, music, and poetry. Presented here in a facsimile edition, the Great Bears epitomize the utopian vision of Higgins and Something Else. [publisher’s note]

Published by Primary Information, 2007
Zines / Facsimile & Reprints