Johanna Drucker's The Re-Declaration Project

Available for sale: The Re-Declaration Project print, issued in a limited edition of 250 copies

 

As a part of our current exhibition, These Truths: The Declarations of Independence, the APS engaged with APS Member, book artist, and cultural critic Johanna Drucker to create a response to the ideas presented in the exhibition. She produced a limited edition print, The Re-Declaration Project, which incorporated the typefaces and visual cues used in past Declarations while interrupting the text with her own edits. In her version, Drucker critiques the promises of equality, freedom, and justice, which remain unfulfilled for many, including women, the dispossessed, and a dying planet. For display in the exhibition, she added a border of hand-drawn frame.

Her Artist Statement:

Respect for the importance of the Declaration of Independence and recognition of the courage and vision of its authors have guided my approach to this project. 

I drew on several source documents in this design. The printed broadside combines John Dunlap’s 1776 iconic single column format familiar with Mary Katharine Goddard’s 1777 two column design and the hand-drawn frame is inspired by John Binns’s engraving, printed in 1819. The frame drawing has been updated to include the seals of all fifty states as well as a few contemporary elements. The broadside is printed in a version of the Caslon typeface used by both Dunlap and Goddard. Designed by the British type founder William Caslon a decade earlier, this robust and versatile typeface was widely used in the Colonies as well as in England. Goddard’s broadside included the ornamental rule like that used here, while Dunlap’s print was without decoration. The layout is meant to invoke the familiar Dunlap document, printed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, and also call attention to printer and publisher Goddard’s contribution in Baltimore, a year later, 1777.

Almost the entire text of the Declaration appears in the broadside. The opening paragraphs are in 18 point type while the alternating lines in 14 point type contain my version in which a few changes in vocabulary or phrasing make the language more contemporary. Shifts in vocabulary or word order are indicated by (phrases in parentheses) while edits to the text are indicated by the presence of blank       spaces.

Throughout, the language of the original text has been preserved with only minor alterations or omissions. The alterations in my text were made to preserve the abiding spirit of the original Declaration as a founding document for our nation by removing the historically specific references. Shifting the focus from particulars to principles emphasizes the ongoing relevance of the Declaration across time and into the present.

This limited edition print is now for sale for $350 (includes shipping within the US). To purchase or for more information, please contact [email protected].

Proceeds support the APS.