Aller Simple. Nos. 1 (Summer, 1981) through 3 (Winter, 1982) (all published)

First Edition. Complete run in three issues, from 62-118 pp. each in stiff wrappers. Principally offset, with some letterpress, photogravure, pochoir, gouache, airbrush, and ink on paper. Text in French, illustrated throughout. Stated edition: 1000 copies. 4to. [2605]

A quietly beautiful and experimental magazine featuring members of latter-day Parisian leftist and avant-garde circles, Aller Simple was in some ways a successor magazine to Utopie, a magazine of experimental urbanism and architecture edited by Tonka from 1967-1977 and featuring many of the same contributors. Aller Simple carries on these concerns but supplements them with other experimental writings in prose and poetry, critiques of modern life and spectacle (Jean Baudrillard is a contributor to no. 2), and reproductions of artwork in various media. The magazine's design is particularly distinguished by featuring executions of original artwork in multiple directly onto its covers: issue 1 is an original stencilled and airbrushed work by Boisard; no. 2 an original design in ink by Boisard; and no. 3 an original gouache recreation of a work by Jean Hélion executed by multiple contributors to the magazine. In all, the magazine includes contributions by Tonka, Boisard, Baudrillard, Jean Aubert, Isabelle Auricoste, Jean-Paul Jungmann, Helen Arnold, François Billard, Daniel Blanchard, Boisard, Jean-Pierre Burgart, Fox, Clarisse Herrenschmidt, Olivier Pagès and Alain Vulbeau, among others. Very scarce, especially complete.