**100 copies** Five editions plus an encore (German / English) by and with Robert Lax (1915 - 2000) in a slipcase, edited by Hartmut Geerken with previously unpublished materials, audio CDs, films, notes, letters, photos and poems. Robert Lax was born in 1915 near New York, the son of jewish immigrants from Austria. Soon he belonged to the literary scene in New York and wrote for magazines like „The New Yorker“ and „Time“ as well as working for radio and film. After the war he lived in Paris for a few years. His pacificism brought him to publish his own magazine: „Pax“. Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Jules Breton, Jean Genet, Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, Ernesto Cardenal were just a few of the personalities who contributed articles to „Pax“. Then in 1961 Lax made a trip to Greece from which he never returned to the USA: an early dropout who encouraged people who encountered him to follow his example.
LAX⁵ includes:
#1 Bob's Bomb - Audio-CD (46:35 min) - An interactive radio play by Hartmut Geerken on a scenario by Robert Lax. - "I go back to 1944-45 when I was five years old and survive all the bomb attacks on Stuttgart. 1961 the american poet Robert Lax writes a very rudimentary text with the title „The bomb. Scenario for auditorium“. In february 1993 Lax said to me: „Back then in New York we all thought about the (atom-) bomb.“ 1967 I experience bombs in Egypt during the „Seven day war“, 1978 the same in Afghanistan." (Hartmut Geerken)
#2 Photo Match - Audio-CD (11:25 min)- £An important action of concept art was the „photo-match“ with Robert Lax which took place in a small inner courtyard on the island of Patmos. The vertically rising microphone stood between us like a mandala. we moved clockwise around the microphone, taking turns to photograph each other." (Hartmut Geerken)
#3 The Hill - Robert Lax reads "The Hill" MP3-CD in three parts (I – 1:33:38 min, II – 1:27:28 min., III – 1:18:00 min) - "We - Hartmut Geerken and I - repeatedly brought Robert Lax together with our friends. With Kostas Yiannoulopoulos, the ‚Jazzking‘ of Greece, with Sun Ra and his Arkestra, who he travelled from Patmos to see at his concert in Athens. With the painter, filmmaker and author Herbert Achternbusch, with Herman de Vries, the artist who lets nature speak through his works, with Klaus Ramm and Jörg Drews, the organisers of the Bielefelder Colloquiums Neue Poesie, to which Hartmut took Lax, the minimalist poet. With Nicolaus Humbert and Werner Penzel, the filmmakers, with Herbert Kapfer the director of the radio play department of the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Projects were developed: readings in Bielefeld, Athens and Zurich as part of the Bielefelder Colloquium Neue Poesie. Publications in the eschenau summer press by Herman de Vries, the films by Humbert / Penzel "Why should I buy a bed when all I want is sleep" and "Three windows", and a number of radio plays by Hartmut Geerken (Bob’s bomb, Erwartet bobo sambo ein geräusch? Erwartet er eine stille?, The family) and my three part radio feature series “A line in three circles, the inner biography of Robert Lax”, which also appeared as a book. As a gesture of admiration Herbert Kapfer named his son Robert. An evening with Herbert Achternbusch in Ambach ended with the only negative remark from Robert Lax in all the years: you better keep away from destructive people. For a long time I didn’t take this advice seriously." (Sigrid Hauff)
#4 Lax Listens - DVD (20:58 min) - "A film which had been forgotten for decades, suddenly surfaced out of the depths of the archive. a steady shot shows the american poet Robert Lax as he listens to my radio play present for his 75th birthday for the first time." (Hartmut Geerken)
#5 Two Clowns On the Lake - DVD (6:32 min) - "…we smirk, make grimaces, talk, walk and film at the same time, we dance around each other and obviously Bob feels as if he is back in his circus tent at the end of the forties…" (Hartmut Geerken)
Waste Bags - Reconstruction of Robert Lax archive system. Folding carton with a photo of Leila Rouge and a text by Geerken. Signed and numbered by Geerken.
