Full-colour Paperback 148 x 148mm, 96pp.

‘The square is a vital, regal infant.’ —Kazimir Malevich

Christian Bök, the fabled author of Eunoia, has turned his attention to Art, taking inspiration from a simple, iconic square: Suprematist Composition: White on White by the artist Kazimir Malevich. Bök has written a series of sixteen, minimal poems, each one a kanji haiku, composed by juxtaposing two names for varied brands of ‘white,’ sold by the manufacturer British Paints. Bök has then used these brands of house paint to create both collaged maquettes and abstract paintings, all modelled upon the aesthetic precedent set by Malevich himself — each artwork, a palimpsest of squares, becoming an icon for the poem that supplies their minimal palette.

Bök has created a genre of simple, visual poetry, whose sequence evolves from the concrete, pastoral image of “Gentle wind/ on Tokyo snow” to the abstract, supernal motif of “Infinity white/ on infinity white.”

Enjoy the austere beauty, if not the elegant rigour, of this work, written by a master of the avant-garde.