May Stevens, Ordinary Extraordinary: A Collage of Words and Images of Rosa Luxemburg and Alice Stevens. 1980
“May Stevens produced and published Ordinary, Extraordinary in 1980 amid a years-long exploration of the life and legacy of the Polish-born Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, and socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), who was murdered in Berlin by members of a German right-wing paramilitary group in the chaotic aftermath of World War I (1914-18). The artist’s book explores the correlations and contrasts between Luxemburg and Stevens' working-class Irish Catholic mother, Alice Stevens (1895-1985), as filtered through the artist’s own experiences and political beliefs. Stevens blends reproduced photo-collages and text excerpts to reveal the uniqueness of these two individuals. For the artist, both women were simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary in their own way. Ultimately, the book reveals resonances between these two women who chose very different paths in life, one private, one public, but both worthy of our attention. In this, Stevens noted that she set out to “erode the polarized notion that one woman's life was special and the other forgettable.” Source: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/136919/ordinary-may-stevens
“Ordinary. Extraordinary. A collage of words and images of Rosa Luxemburg, Polish/German revolutionary leader and theoretician, murder victim (1871– 1919), juxtaposed with images and words of Alice Stevens (born 1895) housewife, mother, washer and ironer, inmate of hospitals and nursing homes. A filmic sequence of darks and lights moving through close-up to long-view and back. Oblique. Direct. Fragments of Rosa’s thought from intimate notes sent from prison to her comrade and lover, Leo Jogiches, and to her friends; from agit-prop published in Die Rote Fächne; and from her serious scientific writings. Images from her girlhood, her middle life, and the final photograph of her murdered head. Alice’s words from the memory of and letters to her daughter. An artist’s book examining and documenting the mark of a political woman whose life would otherwise be unmarked. Ordinary. Extraordinary.” – Publisher’s text
Title: Ordinary Extraordinary: A Collage of Words and Images of Rosa Luxemburg and Alice Stevens
Artist/Author: May Stevens (1924–2019)
Publisher: privately published by May Stevens
Publication date:1980
Design: May Stevens
Format: stapled softcover, offset printed on cream paper
Pages: 26
Images: Illustrated throughout in b/w
Condition: very good. covers a little shelf-worn and darkened towards the spine. Otherwise pages clean and crisp
Provenance: The personal archive of Peter Townsend
Stock Number: RB04450 PT 78
“May Stevens produced and published Ordinary, Extraordinary in 1980 amid a years-long exploration of the life and legacy of the Polish-born Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, and socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), who was murdered in Berlin by members of a German right-wing paramilitary group in the chaotic aftermath of World War I (1914-18). The artist’s book explores the correlations and contrasts between Luxemburg and Stevens' working-class Irish Catholic mother, Alice Stevens (1895-1985), as filtered through the artist’s own experiences and political beliefs. Stevens blends reproduced photo-collages and text excerpts to reveal the uniqueness of these two individuals. For the artist, both women were simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary in their own way. Ultimately, the book reveals resonances between these two women who chose very different paths in life, one private, one public, but both worthy of our attention. In this, Stevens noted that she set out to “erode the polarized notion that one woman's life was special and the other forgettable.” Source: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/136919/ordinary-may-stevens
“Ordinary. Extraordinary. A collage of words and images of Rosa Luxemburg, Polish/German revolutionary leader and theoretician, murder victim (1871– 1919), juxtaposed with images and words of Alice Stevens (born 1895) housewife, mother, washer and ironer, inmate of hospitals and nursing homes. A filmic sequence of darks and lights moving through close-up to long-view and back. Oblique. Direct. Fragments of Rosa’s thought from intimate notes sent from prison to her comrade and lover, Leo Jogiches, and to her friends; from agit-prop published in Die Rote Fächne; and from her serious scientific writings. Images from her girlhood, her middle life, and the final photograph of her murdered head. Alice’s words from the memory of and letters to her daughter. An artist’s book examining and documenting the mark of a political woman whose life would otherwise be unmarked. Ordinary. Extraordinary.” – Publisher’s text
Title: Ordinary Extraordinary: A Collage of Words and Images of Rosa Luxemburg and Alice Stevens
Artist/Author: May Stevens (1924–2019)
Publisher: privately published by May Stevens
Publication date:1980
Design: May Stevens
Format: stapled softcover, offset printed on cream paper
Pages: 26
Images: Illustrated throughout in b/w
Condition: very good. covers a little shelf-worn and darkened towards the spine. Otherwise pages clean and crisp
Provenance: The personal archive of Peter Townsend
Stock Number: RB04450 PT 78
“May Stevens produced and published Ordinary, Extraordinary in 1980 amid a years-long exploration of the life and legacy of the Polish-born Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, and socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919), who was murdered in Berlin by members of a German right-wing paramilitary group in the chaotic aftermath of World War I (1914-18). The artist’s book explores the correlations and contrasts between Luxemburg and Stevens' working-class Irish Catholic mother, Alice Stevens (1895-1985), as filtered through the artist’s own experiences and political beliefs. Stevens blends reproduced photo-collages and text excerpts to reveal the uniqueness of these two individuals. For the artist, both women were simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary in their own way. Ultimately, the book reveals resonances between these two women who chose very different paths in life, one private, one public, but both worthy of our attention. In this, Stevens noted that she set out to “erode the polarized notion that one woman's life was special and the other forgettable.” Source: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/136919/ordinary-may-stevens
“Ordinary. Extraordinary. A collage of words and images of Rosa Luxemburg, Polish/German revolutionary leader and theoretician, murder victim (1871– 1919), juxtaposed with images and words of Alice Stevens (born 1895) housewife, mother, washer and ironer, inmate of hospitals and nursing homes. A filmic sequence of darks and lights moving through close-up to long-view and back. Oblique. Direct. Fragments of Rosa’s thought from intimate notes sent from prison to her comrade and lover, Leo Jogiches, and to her friends; from agit-prop published in Die Rote Fächne; and from her serious scientific writings. Images from her girlhood, her middle life, and the final photograph of her murdered head. Alice’s words from the memory of and letters to her daughter. An artist’s book examining and documenting the mark of a political woman whose life would otherwise be unmarked. Ordinary. Extraordinary.” – Publisher’s text
Title: Ordinary Extraordinary: A Collage of Words and Images of Rosa Luxemburg and Alice Stevens
Artist/Author: May Stevens (1924–2019)
Publisher: privately published by May Stevens
Publication date:1980
Design: May Stevens
Format: stapled softcover, offset printed on cream paper
Pages: 26
Images: Illustrated throughout in b/w
Condition: very good. covers a little shelf-worn and darkened towards the spine. Otherwise pages clean and crisp
Provenance: The personal archive of Peter Townsend
Stock Number: RB04450 PT 78