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Walasse Ting’s One Cent Life

In 1964, artist/poet Walasse Ting presented a pioneering book of poetry that brought together artists of divergent influence and background, many whose names would dominate Contemporary art. Melding western movements from to American in harmony with Ting’s eastern infused English prose, twenty-seven artists worked with Ting to illustrate the pages of One Cent Life with sixty-two original lithographs.1 Ryerson Library holds Regular Edition numbered 1348/2000, which features a hand-printed cover by participating artists and Pierre Alchinsky. One hundred special editions were also released on handmade paper signed by individual artists.2 Born in China in 1929, Walasse Ting brought his eastern style of poetry and art to in 1952, where he met Alchinsky, Jorn and Appel. Ting found himself New York City in 1956 to discover new friends Francis, Wesselman and Oldenberg.3 Global exploration and creative counterparts helped inspire Ting to attempt to publish a book of all-encompassing movements and worldly artists. Ting began the undertaking of this project by writing the poems to be illustrated by fellow artists that would soon fill the pages of One Cent Life.4 He recounts the genesis of the compilation: “I wrote 61 poems in ’61 in a small room like black coffin, inside room only salami, whiskey, sexy photographs from Times Square. No Bible, no cookbook, no telephone book, no checkbook. Short Two fingers typing, talking about World & garbage, You and I, Egg and Earth.”5

This vision began to take physical shape when friends of Ting and Francis from around the globe created lithographic imagery in response to Ting’s seedy and erotic poetry. Francis provided funding to purchase the seventeen tons of paper needed for the project, and E.W. Kornfeld printed the editions.6

1 Corlett, Mary Lee. The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonne 1948-1993 (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1994). 2 Ting, Walasse. One Cent Life (New York: Klipstein & Kornfeld, Berne, 1964). 3 Page, A. F. “An Action .” Bulletin of The Detroit Institute of Arts 39 Number 1 (1959-60): 12. 4 Wake Forest University. Print Collection, One Cent Life. http://www.wfu.edu/art/pc/pc-ting.html, (accessed November 29, 2007). 5 Ting, Walasse. “Near 1 Cent Life.” Art News 65, Number 3 (May 1966): 67. 6 Ting, “Near 1 Cent Life,” 1966. Ting, One Cent Life, 1964. Kramer 2

We are witness to the inspirations and new directions taken by participating artists brought together by this great compilation. Movements blend from one page to the next as the artists work side by side. Most of the images in the book glow with the intense, unmixed colors relative to the 1950’s CoBrA group’s founding members and participants Asger Jorn and .7 The book exudes the aggressive energy of Abstract Expressionist’s and , who also had working relationships with Ting in a prior illustrated poetic compilation Fresh Air School.8 Roy Lichtenstein creates his self-proclaimed first “true” Pop Art images soon after working with Warhol, Oldenberg and Dine on the project. The illustrations to the poetry also include reproductions of advertisements, post cards, and postage stamps documenting the influx of Pop Art.9 One Cent Life captures these developments with worldly examples of the great innovators of the times. It provides a voyeuristic window into the vibrantly colored origins of overlapping movements and their creators brought together by artist, poet, and revolutionary, Walasse Ting.

7 Stokvis, Willemijn. Cobra: An International Movement in Art After the Second World War. (New York: Rizzoli, 1988). 8 Museum of Art, Fresh Air School, 1972. 9 Corlett, Prints of Lichtenstein, 1994.