Concerning Concrete Poetry / Hannah Weinberger: You’ll be there when I’ll be near

Concerning Concrete Poetry
Jeremy Adler, Annalisa Alloatti, Max Bense, Mirella Bentivoglio, Alison Bielski, Claus Bremer, Klaus Burkhardt, Bill Butler, Augusto de Campos, Henri Chopin, Paula Claire, Hans Clavin, Bob Cobbing, Kenelm Cox, Siegfried Cremer, Klaus-Peter Dienst, Rolf-Gunter Dienst, Reinhard Döhl, Fria Elfen, Öyvind Fahlström, Peter Finch, Ian Hamilton Finlay, John Furnival, Pierre Garnier, Mathias Goeritz, Lily Greenham, Bohumilá Grögerová, Dick Higgins, Josef Hiršal, Sten Hanson, Ludwig Harig, Lee Harwood, Helmut Heißenbüttel, Åke Hodell, Josef Honys, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Ernst Jandl, Jeff Keen, Günther C. Kirchberger, Ferdinand Kriwet, Liliana Landi, Edward Lucie-Smith, Siegfried Maser, Hansjörg Mayer, Peter Mayer, Franz Mon, Edwin Morgan, Ladislav Nebeský, bpNichol, Seiichi Niikuni, Ladislav Novák, Jeff Nuttall, Charles Olson, P.J. O’Rourke, Michele Perfetti, Helga Philipp, Jennifer Pike, Dieter Roth, Aram Saroyan, Karel Trinkewitz, Jiří Valoch, Paul de Vree, Herman de Vries, Emmett Williams, Edward Wright, Louis Zukofsky

Concerning Concrete Poetry presents the unique qualities of archives of concrete poetry as well as the national and international connections between them. The exhibition includes a comprehensive display of British concrete poets Bob Cobbing’s and Peter Mayer’s collections and takes its title and guiding principle from their recently reprinted seminal publication Concerning Concrete Poetry (1978/2014). In a similar manner to the book, the exhibition describes the terms "concrete," "semantic poetry," and "concrete renewal" within a contemporary environment that includes a series of events with artists, writers, and performers.

Examples of works by Henri Chopin, Dom Sylvester Houédard, and Emmett Williams from Mayer’s and Cobbing’s collections will be shown alongside selected artefacts and historical material. Importantly, the project also focuses on artists from outside of the UK with a specific accent on concrete poets from Germany, respectively on works by the Stuttgart Group/School, including such prominent artists as Max Bense, Reinhard Döhl, and Helmut Heißenbüttel. These and other seminal works of concrete poetry originate from the collection of Reinhard Döhl, located at ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. Furthermore the exhibition includes prints and portfolios by Hansjörg Mayer, whose early career also took place in Stuttgart before he moved to the UK in the 1960s, with his studio still situated in London.

The exhibition also presents wider countercultural ephemera connected to the concrete poetry movement and describes the intertwined current double-helix between design, typography, poetry, literature, and the visual arts, as well as the parallel histories of Conceptual Art, Mail Art, and Fluxus in their local and international forms. In addition, a vinyl record containing recent sound poetry designed by artist and graphic designer Scott King will be co-published by Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany and Slimvolume Press, London. The record’s insert contains recent interviews with Hansjörg Mayer and Peter Mayer, while the former artist has also designed the poster for this exhibition.

Curated by Andrew Hunt and Anja Casser

Concerning Concrete Poetry was produced with the generous assistance of ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; Richard Saltoun Gallery, London; Peter and Mary Mayer; and the Bob Cobbing family collection. Work from the latter collection has previously been shown in the Bob Jubilé programme, curated by William Cobbing and Rosie Cooper. With thanks to Margit Rosen, Nahid Matin Pour, and Stephanie Tiede.

Atrium
Hannah Weinberger
You’ll be there when I’ll be near
The exhibition presents a new, site-specific installation by Hannah Weinberger. The artist works primarily with video, audio, and performance and creates installations that she contextualizes spatially. The images and sounds are mainly sourced from field recordings made by Weinberger on her travels and presented across numerous channels in asynchronous loops in the exhibition space. They consist chiefly of ambient visual and aural components without specific narration—nature recordings, animals, scenes from everyday public life, clips from the Internet. Weinberger is fascinated by the idea of how certain images or sounds in a world conveyed by media can trigger recollections. The artist is less concerned with specific places than with the affective power of images and sounds and the responses produced in visitors of the installations. She captures and creatively makes use of the atmospheres conjured by places, which are interchangeable. Far from simply presenting her recordings, Weinberger stages them in a spatial context, generating an ever-changing mix of sound and video elements. As a result, each visit to the exhibition is a unique experience and a game of chance.

Curated by Nadja Quante

Accompanying programme

Artist talk with Hannah Weinberger
Wednesday, March 23, 7pm

Concerning Concrete Poetry-Festival: Manifestos, Archives and Collections
Thursday, March 31–Friday, April 1

This series of lectures, talks, readings, and performances aims to describe the various historical definitions of the international concrete poetry movement. It will address manifestos from the 1960s and 1970s and examine contemporary perspectives on museums’ and artists’ collections of the genre. For more information: www.badischer-kunstverein.de


The exhibition Concerning Concrete Poetry is supported by