Braco Dimitrijević: His Pencil's Voice / Njegove olovke glas
B/W photos Sven Stilinović & Fedor Vučemilović
Galerija SC & Muzički salon Teatar ITD,
Zageb, 1973.
In very fine codition. Very very rare.
Ursula Block’s seminal catalog of art records and anti-records, entitled Broken Music, includes several artifacts that today are coveted by collectors of unusual records. One seminal item in that catalog Njeqove Olovke Glas, a.k.a. His Pencil’s Voice, a “record” produced by the conceptual artist Braco Dimitrijević: he piece is an LP jacket with a piece of cardboard inside; the “record” is a piece of cardboard inside the jacket. Dimitrijević used a pencil to draw a spiral on the cardboard record, meant to represent the its grooves. The title, His Pencil’s Voice, is no doubt a reference to the early record label, His Master’s Voice: Little is known about His Pencil’s Voice, so I emailed Braco Dimitrijević to learn more. He is a man of few words, always keeping things to the point when conversing via email. He explained that His Pencil’s Voice was created for a solo exhibition in London’s Situation Gallery, which was a linchpin of the modern art scene in the seventies.
“What bothered me always was the process of realization from the idea, the sketch to the final art work,” he explains. “This was not only in visual arts, but in music too. So I wanted to create a record with no score performed, but what is written is drawn to be played.”
In essence, Dimitrijević saw His Pencil’s Voice as a more direct way of producing a final art product, cutting out the laborious production process. “I drew by hand the spiral on the paper and brought it to printers to make a zinc plate to emboss and print the label,” he recalls
Source: Anomaly Index.