Women in concrete poetry

Women in concrete, visual, and sound poetry

Works

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  Anni Albers, Typewriter study to create textile effect, n.d. Typewriter printing in blue ink on paper mounted on board, 27 x 16.8 cm. Made on Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter. (Source). Printed in 1974 monograph by Albers. More.

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  Ruth Asawa, Untitled (BMC on newsprint), c.1946-1949. Stamped ink on newsprint. Created during Asawa's studies with Anni Albers at Black Mountain College. More, [1], [2], [3].

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  Lygia Pape, Vem [Come], Poema-objeto [Poem-Object] series, 1957. Tempera on cardboard. Photo: Paula Pape. More works from the series.

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  Salette Tavares, Os efes, 1963. (Source). Gulbenkian. Artist's statement, 1973.

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  Mary Ellen Solt, Moonshot Sonnet, 1964. The poem is "composed from reformatted diagrammatic-codes initially used by NASA-engineers to plan and execute the moon landing. The engineers placed the diagrammatic-codes over photographs of the lunar surface, and Solt abstracted the diagrams without any photographic reference. Using the codes, she transformed the result into a sonnet, with the codes appearing in “exactly fourteen “lines” with five “accents,”” a Petrarchan or Italianate sonnet" [4].

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  Bici Hendricks (now Nye Ffarrabas), Punctuation Poems, New York: Black Thumb Press, 1966, 14 x 8.5 cm. An envelope with a white label containing 20 printed cards, each consisting of a single typewriter character. (Source). MoMA.

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  Mary Ellen Solt, Flowers in Concrete [1966], 1969, [1+11] plates, 92 x 61 cm, PDFs. Includes poems Forsythia, Lilac, and Geranium

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  Cover of JOB-BOJ, collection of poems by Josef Hiršal and Bohumila Grögerová, Prague: Československý spisovatel, 1968, 130 pp.

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  Biljana Tomić, Typoezija, 1968.

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  Mary Beach's poem in The San Francisco Earthquake 1:3, 1968.

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  Tamara Janković, Šesta Dimenzija 16 (Sixth Dimension 16), in Signal, no. 1, 1970. Janković was a member of the Belgrade-based Signalist group of experimental poets in the early 1970s and was on the editorial board for the group’s magazine, Signal. Her use, here, of numbers, letters, and the Pierre Cardin logo reflects the Signalist goal to explore symbols and imagery in new poetry that transcends national languages.

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  May Swenson, Feel Me. From Swenson's collection of visual poems, Iconographs, 1970. Drafts. Poetry review.

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  Poems by Marina Abramović published in Signal, no. 4-5, 1971.

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  Mary Ellen Solt, The Peoplemover 1968: A Demonstration Poem [1973], 1978, 114 pp. Reproduction of the texts and posters (arranged in the form of concrete poems) from Solt’s performance.

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  Neide Sá, Transparência, 1968. Acrylic, serigraphy, 20 x 20 x 20 cm. (Source).

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  Ewa Partum, Active Poetry, 1971-1973. 8 mm film, b&w, no sound, 5'53".
  Documentation of five actions in the surroundings of Warsaw. For her action in 1971, "the artist cut up a single page of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses and scattered the individual letters in a pedestrian arcade in Warsaw. The letters became distributed through the space creating new texts and chance meetings as passers-by moved around the arcade. The concept marked a turning point in Partum’s career and is one with which she has continued to play in order to critique the means and modes of textual production. Partum went on to create a series of works using letter cut-outs, often releasing them into natural spaces, including the ocean and a hilltop." [5]. View film on Filmoteka. Tate. Reina Sofia. Generali. 2006 re-creation at Tate.

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  Mirella Bentivoglio, L’(assente), positivo/negativo, segno/figura [The Absent One, Positive/Negative, Sign/Figure], 1971. Serigraph on paper, 62.55 x 48.26 cm. (Source).

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  Mirtha Dermisache, Diario No. 1, Año 1, 1972. Chinese ink and marker on paper, 46.4 × 35.6 cm. Source.

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  Mirella Bentivoglio, E = congiunzione [And = Conjunction], 1973. Serigraph on paper, 20.96 x 29.85 cm. (Source).

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  Cover of Cozette de Charmoy's collage novel The Colossal Lie (Collection OU 4), 1974.

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  Mary Ellen Solt's contribution (ZigZag) to Arti visive. Poesia visiva, 1976. (Source).

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  Liliana Landi's contribution to Arti visive. Poesia visiva, 1976. (Source).

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  Hannah Weiner, Clairvoyant Journal 1974: March—June Retreat, Lenox, MA: Angel Hair Books, 1978, JPGs. Commentary.

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  Mirella Bentivoglio, Io [Me], 1979. Photo­mech­anical print on paper, 60 x 40 cm. (Source).

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  Mirella Bentivoglio, Moduli a E [E Combinations], 1980. Ink on paper drawings after 1977 wooden constructions, 29.53 x 20.96 cm. (Source).

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  Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Men, 1984. (Source).

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  Irma Blank, Radical Writings, Rosa geatmet, rosa gechrieben [Pink Breathed, Pink Scripted], 1987. Acrylic on canvas (diptych), 2 × 2.4 m. Photograph: C. Favero. (Source).

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  Ana Hatherly, Poeta chama poeta I, 1989. Indian ink on paper, 23 x 30 cm. Serralves.

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  Ana Hatherly, Le Pli - No 1, c.1993. Source & more.

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  Irma Blank, Osmotic Drawings D-7, 1996. Acrylic on paper, 23 × 30 cm. Photograph: C. Favero. (Source).

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  M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! #15, from Zong!, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, and Toronto: Mercury Press, 2008, 211 pp. Audio.

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  Natalie Czech, A hidden poem by Jack Kerouac #2, 2011. C-Print. In her series, Hidden Poems (2010-2013), Czech mines texts from a variety of sources, purposefully seeking or subconsciously finding in them words and fragments, which through a process of selection, repetition, and erasure, coalesce into poems by Frank O'Hara, Aram Saroyan, E.E. Cummings, Velimir Khlebnikov, a.o.

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  Sharon Hayes, Tongue, from Fingernails on a blackboard: Bella, video, 2014. (Source).

See also Women in Concrete Poetry channel on Are.na.

Sound works

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  Anastasia Bitzos, Konkrete Poesie, Sound Poetry, Artikulationen, 1966, vinyl LP; 2004, CD. A selected documentation of the performance organized by Anastasia Bitzos on 26 May 1966 in the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland: "Konkrete Poesie, in Tonband, Lichtbild und Lesung". The production of the performance, the selection and the compiling of the record made by Anastasia Bitzos. Compositions by Bremer, Jandl, Gomringer, Mon, de Campos, Greenham, Bense, De Vree, Döhl, Geissbühler. Discogs.

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  Katalin Ladik, Ballada az ezüstbicikliről (1962-1968), Novi Sad: Forum Könyvkiadó, 1969. Texts.

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  Lily Greenham, Internationale Sprachexperimente der 50/60er jahre / International Language Experiments of the 50/60ies: Tendentious Neo-Semantics 1970 in English, Frankfurt am Main: Hoffmann, 1970, vinyl LP. Lily Greenham reading poems by Peter Greenham, Jandl, Mills, Morgan, Cobbing, Gamier, Bense, de Campos, Braga, Pignateri, Rühm, Arias-Misson, Heissenbüttel, Molero, Sanmark, Steen, and her own poetry. Discogs.

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  Katalin Ladik, Phonopoetica (Phonetic Interpretations of Visual Poetry), Belgrade: Galerija studentskog kulturnog centra, 1976, 7" vinyl. Discogs. [6].

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  Lily Greenham, Lingual Music, Paradigm Discs, 2007, 2xCD. Works from 1968-1974. Discogs.

Writings, statements

Biljana Tomić, "Objašnjenje typoezije", Novine Galerija SC 9, Belgrade, 1969, p 19. (Serbo-Croatian)

Lily Greenham, "Lingual Music", in Kontextsound, ed. Michael Gibbs, Amsterdam: Kontexts Publications, 1977, p 22.

Paula Claire, "The Notation of My Sound Poetry", Open Letter 5:7, Spring 1984. [7]

Mary Ellen Solt, "Concrete Steps to an Anthology", in Experimental, Visual, Concrete: Avant-garde PoetrySince the 1960s, eds. K. David Jackson, Eric Vos, and Johanna Drucker, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996, pp 347-352.

Maria Demon, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, "Desiring Visual Texts: A Collage and Embroidery Dialogue", Jacket2, 25 Mar 2013.

Poets, artists

• May Swenson (1913-1989)
• Mary Beach (1919-2006)
• Mira Schendel (1919-1988)
• Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007)
• Betty Danon (1920-2002)
• Jennifer Pike Cobbing (1920-2016)
• Bohumila Grögerová (1921-2014)
• Mirella Bentivoglio (1922-2017)
• Salette Tavares (1922-1994)
• Lily Greenham (1924-2001)
• Ilse Garnier (1927)
• Greta Monach (1928-2018)
• Hannah Weiner (1928-1997)
• Ana Hatherly (1929-2015)
• Françoise Janicot (1929-2017)
• Bogdanka Poznanović (1930-2013)
• Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt (1932)
• Nye Ffarrabas (formerly Bici Forbes and Bici Hendricks, 1932)
• Lucia Marcucci (1933)
• Giulia Niccolai (1934)
• Irma Blank (1934)
• Barbara Caruso (1937-2009)
• Susan Howe (1937)
• Ketty La Rocca (1938-1976)
• Cozette de Charmoy (1939)
• Liliane Lijn (1939)
• Paula Claire (1939)
• Judith Copithorne (1939)
• Mirtha Dermisache (1940-2012)
• Elena Asins (1940-2015)
• Biljana Tomić (1940)
• Neide Sá (1940)
• Maxine Gadd (1940)
• Judita Šalgo (1941-1996)
• Rachel Blau DuPlessis (1941)
• Katalin Ladik (1942)
• Ry Nikonova (1942-2014)
• Ann Noël (1944)
• Ewa Partum (1945)
• Joanna Margaret Paul (1945-2003)
• Betty Radin
• Rhoda Rosenfeld
• Michèle Métail (1950)
• Ana María Uribe (1951-2004)
• Maggie O'Sullivan (1951)
• Johanna Drucker (1952)
• Lenora de Barros (1953)
• Beth Learn
• Maria Damon (1955)
• Elizabeth Was (Lyx Ish, 1956-2004)
• Patricia Farrell (1956)
• Caterina Davinio (1957)
• Peggy Lefler (1959)
• Erica Baum (1961)
• Jen Bervin (1972)
• Sylvia Ptak
• Natalie Czech (1976)
• Safiye Can (1977)
• Francesca Capone (1987)
• Mo Tingey (formerly Maurene Sandoe)

Exhibition catalogues

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  Arti visive. Poesia visiva, 1976.

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  Materializzazione del linguaggio, 1978.

Group exhibitions

Arti visive. Poesia visiva. / Visual Poetry by Women, an International Exhibition in Venice, ed. Mirella Bentivoglio, intro. Franca Zoccoli, Rome: Studio d'Arte Contemporanea, 1976, [27] cards+[3] leaves, 22 x 16 cm. Introduction, Artist list. A gathering of artists’ cards documenting visual and concrete poetry all created by women from Italy, England, Germany, United States, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Canada, and Japan. Organized by Bentivoglio, this multiyear exhibit traveled form city to city throughout Italy (Milan, Savona, Rome, Turin) starting in 1972. Participating artists: Annalisa Alloatti, Mirella Bentivoglio, Irma Blank, Paul Claire, Lia Drei, Ulrike Eberle, Anna Esposito, Amelia Etlinger, Gisela Frankenberg, Ilse Garnier, Bohumila Grögerová, Ana Hatherly, Annalies Klophaus, Liliana Landi, Giulia Niccolai, Anna Oberto, Anezia Pacheco e Chaves, Marguerite Pinney, Betty Radin, Giovanna Sandri, Mira Schendel, Mary Ellen Solt, Chima Sunada, Salette Tavares, Biljana Tomić, Patrizia Vicinelli. [8] (Italian),(English)

Materializzazione del linguaggio, ed. Mirella Bentivoglio, Biennale di Venezia 1978-Arti visive e architettura, 1978, 55 pp. Catalogue for exh. held 20 Sep-15 Oct 1978 featuring works by 86 women artists. Text by Mirella Bentivoglio, biographies of the exhibiting artists including Sonia Delaunay, Natalia Goncharova, Irma Blank, Mirella Bentivoglio, Lia Dreai, Chiara Diamantini, Elisabetta Gut, Ketty La Rocca, Lucia Marcucci, Simona Weller, Carla Vasio, Giulia Niccolai, Paola Levi Montalcini, Maria Lai, Tomaso Binga. [9] {{it}

Solo exhibitions

Mirella Bentivoglio: Pages: Selected Works, 1966-2012, ed. & intro. Frances K. Pohl, Claremont, CA: Pomona College Museum of Art, 2015, 152 pp, Excerpt (pp 57-90). This book is the first museum publication in English on Italian artist Mirella Bentivoglio (born 1922). It includes critical essays by art historians Frances K. Pohl, Leslie Cozzi and Franca Zoccoli, interviews with Bentivoglio and John David O'Brien, and a biographical note by Rosaria Abate, plus a bibliography. The book highlights work from the recent exhibition at the Pomona College Museum of Art, which surveyed nearly 50 years of the artist's work as an internationally renowned member of the Concrete and visual poetry movements. Including works in paper, stone, metal, wood, cloth, plastic and Plexiglass and with numerous previously unpublished images, it reveals the ways in which Bentivoglio engaged with many of the most significant formal and theoretical issues of postwar art--for example, the relationship between image and text, the impact of mass media and consumer culture, feminist critiques of patriarchy and artistic interventions in public spaces. Exhibition: Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, USA (20.01-17.05.2015). [10] (English)

Cozette de Charmoy: Podróże wyobraźni, eds. Urszula Czartoryska and Jaromir Jedlinski, Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 1987, [16] pp. (Polish)

Anthologies

The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008, eds. Nico Vassilakis and Crag Hill, Seattle, WA: FantaGraphics, 2012, 331 pp. Features a number of women poets. Project website. Publisher. Journal issue containing responses.

Evening Will Come 33: "Women of Visual Poetry", ed. & intro. Jessica Smith, Sep 2013. Works by Lori Anderson Moseman, Rosaire Appel, Petra Backonja, Andrea Baker, Alixandra Bamford, Harriet Bart, C. Mehrl Bennett, Carla Bertola, Anna Boschi, Robin F. Brox, lindsay cahill, Judith Copithorne, Maria Damon, Rachel Defay-Liautard, Michelle Detorie, Johanna Drucker, Lyric Dunagan, Amanda Earl, K. S. Ernst, Kiki Franceschi, Susana Gardner, K. Lorraine Graham, Rosa Gravino, Sandra Guerreiro, Sharon Harris, Anne Marie JeanJean, Ragnhildur Jóhanns, Adeena Karasick, Aya Karpinska, Sharon Kaye, Christine Kennedy, Wendy Kramer, Donna Kuhn, Bobbi Lurie, Jill Magi, Tracey McTague, Miriam Midley, Sheila Murphy, Denise Newman, T. A. Noonan, Julia Otxoa, Pearl Pirie, Deborah Poe, Frances Presley, michèle provost, Fátima Queiroz, Zarmina Rafi, a rawlings, cia rinne, Katrina Rodabaugh, Marilyn R. Rosenberg, Jess Rowan, Jessica Smith, Matina Stamatakis, Sandra Stephenson, Carol Stetser, Bianca Stone, Meredith Stricker, Eileen Tabios, Paulette Turcotte, Chris Turnbull, Danielle Vogel, Helen White.

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979, eds. Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre, New York: Primary Information, Sep 2020, 480 pp. Takes as its point of departure the Materializzazione del linguaggio exhibition. Artists and writers include Lenora de Barros, Ana Bella Geiger, and Mira Schendel from Brazil; Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Liliana Landi, Anna Oberto, and Giovanna Sandri from Italy; Amanda Berenguer from Uruguay; Suzanne Bernard and Ilse Garnier from France; Blanca Calparsoro from Spain; Paula Claire and Jennifer Pike from the UK; Betty Danon from Turkey; Mirtha Dermisache from Argentina; Bohumila Grögerová from the Czech Republic; Ana Hatherly and Salette Tavares from Portugal; Madeline Gins, Mary Ellen Solt, Susan Howe, Liliane Lijn, and Rosmarie Waldrop from the US; Irma Blank and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt from Germany; Chima Sunada from Japan; and Katalin Ladik and Bogdanka Poznanović from the former Yugoslavia. Publisher.

Archives, resources

Paula Claire Archive; fromWORDtoART - International PoetArtists, an international archive of sound and visual poetry, est. 1983. The archive containing over 5,000 books, poem objects, exhibition catalogues, cassettes and CDs, was gathered by exchanging Claire's Little Press publications with fellow international poets, and is the basis of illustrated talks and displays.

Reception, art historical studies, theory

Nye Ffarrabas, "Nye Ffarrabas (formerly Bici Forbes Hendricks", in Remembering Judson House, eds. Elly Dickason and Jerry G. Dickason, New York: Judson Memorial Church, 2000, pp 321-334. (English)

Maria Antonietta Trasforini, "Decostruzioniste ante litteram: artiste in Italia negli anni Sessanta e Settanta", in Arte delle donne nell'Italia del Novecento, eds. Laura Iamurri and Sabrina Spinazzè, Rome: Meltemi, 2001, pp 181-199. Profiles Italian women whose artworks from those the 1960 and 1970s incorporated both word and image. [11] (Italian)

OEI 51: "Mary Ellen Solt: Towards a theory of concrete poetry", ed. & forew. Antonio Sergio Bessa, Stockholm, 2010. [12] [13] (English)

Evening Will Come 32: "Women Looking at Vispo", ed. Nico Vassilakis, Aug 2013. (English)

Leslie Cozzi, "Notes on the Index, Continued: Italian Feminism and the Art of Mirella Bentivoglio and Ketty La Rocca", Cahiers d’études italiennes 16, 2013, pp 213-234. (English)

Elisabeth A. Frost, "Visual Poetics", in A History of Twentieth-Century American Women's Poetry, ed. Linda A. Kinnahan, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp 339-358. (English)

See also

Concrete poetry, Sound poetry, Feminist art