Godofredo Iommi Marini, Alberto Cruz and others.

[AMEREIDA – UTOPIAN CHILEAN ARCHITECTURE AND EXPERIMENTAL POETRY] Número único: revista de poesía [Unique number: a journal for poetry]. Sole published issue.

Viña del Mar, Chile: Patricio Toro Anastassiou, 1981. Folio (39.7 × 30.3 cm). Unbound gatherings housed in original printed cloth folder; [124] pp. and 14 plates with full-page, mostly color printed reproductions of drawings and watercolors by various Chilean artists. Folder stained and with signs of wear; first and last leaves foxed; else good or better. Item #55058

Scarce portfolio of Chilean poetry and art, in which each of the fourteen gatherings is dedicated to one poet and one artist. What unites the majority of the authors and artists featured here is their participation in the "Amereida" projects. The name of this interdisciplinary Chilean initiative is a neologism combining the words “America” and “Eneida” (The Aeneid). The aim was to stage a South American Aeneid; a journey as a founding myth, a “geopoetic study”, which resulted not only in the “Amereida” poem and travel diary written jointly by the poets, but also in cartographic reinterpretations. Not only was the geographical south reinterpreted as the geographical north, but attempts were also made, for example, to transfer the constellations to the geographical conditions and travel routes. As a result, the journey took place off the asphalted roads through inhospitable country. Poetic readings, performances, and happenings of all kinds were to take place along the route, creating the verses and stanzas of a South American founding epic. Ten poets, artists, architects and philosophers embarked on this expedition. Godofredo Iommi believed that poetry should be developed by everyone together and not just by one subject. The journey was intended to set collective poetic action in motion. The “Amereida” ultimately led to the “Ciudad Abierta” project, which was opened as an experimental space of the Catholic University of Valparaíso in 1971.

“Ciudad Abierta” (open city) was an interdisciplinary architecture project, jointly developed by poets, architects, and artists north of Valparaíso. The starting point of this architectural experiment was the idea of understanding architecture as a playful form of the lyrical, as a language that has become space. Analogous to the openness of poetic language, its ambiguity and its processual changeability, the architecture of the “Ciudad Abierta” should also be one that is in a state of permanent change, in a constant state of emergence. Just as language is always being “built on” through speaking and writing practice, so too should the architecture of the “Ciudad Abierta” be constantly changing in common practice. The architect and theorist Alberto Cruz (who initiated the project together with the poet Godofredo Iommi) did not see architecture as a static construction planned and built for eternity, but rather, like language, as a precarious, organic correlation. Thus, “Ciudad Abierta” was literally built on sand. The open city was to be nothing other than a patchwork that had to be constantly rebuilt, improved and rethought.(Cf. Mário Gomes. Ein Roadtrip ohne Road: Poetik der Architektur, Online text archive, Zurich: Diaphanes 2017.)

The following poets are included in the portfolio: Roberto Godoy Arcaya, Ignacio Balcells, Efraín Tomás Bo, Gonzalo Barros Mello Mourão, Carlos Covarrubias, Louis Dalla Fior, Leonidas Emilfork, Godofredo Iommi M, Godofredo Iommi Amunátegui, Gerardo Mello Mourão, Paulo Ramos Filho, Ernesto Rodríguez, Virgilio Rodríguez, Mauricio Schiavetti.

The artists involved are: José Balcells E., Bruno Barla, Juan Baixas, Tomás Browne, Manuel Casanueva, Claudia Girola, Alberto Cruz C., Fabio Cruz P., David Jolly, Francisco Méndez L., Juan Purcell, Just Uribe, José Vial, Salvador Zahr.

As of March 2025, OCLC lists only one copy in North America.

Price: €2,250.00

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