Saturday, 9 July 2011

OONA GRIMES, ALEXANDRE BETTLER & ALEX CZINCZEL AT THE POETRY LIBRARY


looking through the lift shaft into the Poetry Library




ART ON POETRY


This month three artists are responding to the Poetry Library's collection.  Immediately outside the library by the glass panelled lift is an animation by Alex Czinczel called 'The Old Hedgehog'. It is a visual response to Bob Cobbing's 
concrete poem 'The Young Hedgehog' (1956) in which he used selected lines of newspaper text to create a poem.
Czinzcel's animation is cut and paste newspaper text and image with a cut out hedgehog journeying through media land.
I tried to watch searching for meaning and trying to make sense of the narrative but gave up.... there did not seem to be 
any sense to it ..... it was meant to be fragmented and random.


Alexandre Bettler is making an artist's book edition 'Random Poetry Policies' with the help of visitors to the library. The photocopier has become a poetry machine containing preprinted text from political party websites. Visitors are encouraged to write their own handwritten messages which merge with the printed text to create an unpredictable outcome. Bettler through this exercise is raising questions about the value of ordinary people's participation in politics.
Upstairs on level 6 in the Members Bar I really liked  Random Slogan Posters 2010: 'destroy all borders and lets grow
much taller' and 'your ignorance is our killer'. Click on aalex.info to see earlier work.


Oona Grimes has created a series of postcards and artist's book called 'Edith Mixes Concrete'. It represents a fictional dialogue between the poets Edith Sitwell and Bob Cobbing.  Upstairs in the members bar I saw 'Postcards from the 7th 
floor' a collaboration between Iain Sinclair & Oona Grimes Brighton Pighog (2010) and 'Mashed Swede' (2011).






looking down the lift shaft outside the Poetry Library

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