Item #30015 Semina No. 2. Wallace Berman, ed.
Semina No. 2

Semina No. 2

Los Angeles: Wallace Berman, 1957. First edition. 8vo, [28] pp, saddle-stapled in card wraps with a photomontage pasted down to front panel. The contributions "handset with miscellaneous available type & papers" and pasted down onto each page. Housed in a custom made cloth box with leather title label at spine.

Second issue of the magazine, with contributions from Herman Hesse, Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Jack Anderson, Michael McClure, Idell T. Romero, Zack Walsh, Eric Cashen, J. B. May, Alexander Trocchi, Lynn Trocchi, John Reed, Paul Valery, Peder Carr, J. B. May, Marion Grogan, Marcia Jacobs, Charles Bukowski, Charles Baudelaire (translated by Hyman Lopez), Rabindranath Tagore, and Berman himself under the pseudonym Pantale Xantos.

This example retains the announcement of the censorship and closure of Berman's exhibition at Ferus Gallery, which had been closed down after cops deemed a drawing by Cameron in the first issue of Semina used as part of a collage was deemed pornographic. The trial led Berman to take the Semina undeground and north. "I will continue to print 'Semina' from locations other than this city of degenerate angels."

Wraps a bit rubbed with a couple dings to edges, and a narrow, approximately 1" coffee stain affecting the photographically illustrated pastedown to cover, else very good. Item #30015

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