Edwin Schlossberg

Edwin Schlossberg (b. 1945) was introduced to Tatyana Grosman in the summer of 1967 by their mutual friend Jasper Johns. At this time, Schlossberg, a deotee of the teachings of R Buckminster Fuller, was studying linguistics, physics, and literature at Columbia University.

Mrs. Grosman, who was always searching for ways to combine art and literature, invited the young poet to print at ULAE. Schlossberg was then making his own books, using unorthodox materials such as aluminum foil and plastic wrap. His first and most significant project at ULAE, WORDSWORDSWORDS, 1967-1968, consists of seventeen poems that examine how the presentation of words can change their meaning. Using different typefaces ranging from large, crudely rendered stencil to typewriter Elite, Schlossberg’s poems are printed on a wide variety of materials, including Plexiglas, aluminum foil, and paper. Taking full advantage of the techniques available at ULAE, Schlossberg employed embossing, blind embossing, lithography, letterpress, and etching to complete his project. All seventeen pages with colophon page and a preface by Robert Rauschenberg are contained in a handmade aluminum box. Schlossberg completed two other projects for ULAE, Fragments from a Place, 1974, and a series of prints in 1981 that incorporated the newly developed temperature sensitive Liquid Crystal as a color medium.