Roland The magazine of The iCa’s visual art pRogRamme issue 2 / June —AUGUST 2009 feaTuRing a guide To Poor. old. Tired. Horse. galleRy guide 4 evenTs 18 puBliCaTIONS 21 ediTIONS 22 fuTuRe pRoJeCTs 22 BaCKgRound maTeRial 26 exhibiting artists: vito acconci, Carl andre, anna Barham, matthew Brannon, henri Chopin, ian hamilton finlay, alasdair gray, philip guston, david hockney, Karl holmqvist, dom sylvester houédard, Janice Kerbel, Christopher Knowles, ferdinand Kriwet, liliane lijn, Robert smithson, frances stark and sue Tompkins; curated by mark sladen magazine also features contributions by: Charlotte Bonham-Carter, augusto de Campos, lewis Carroll, michelle Cotton, douglas Coupland, eugen gomringer, george herbert, Joseph Kosuth, liz Kotz, giles Round, stephen scobie, Tris vonna-michell and William Carlos Williams The iCa is proud to present the second issue of ROLAND, which has been produced to accompany our summer exhibi- tion, entitled Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. The first half of the magazine contains a guide to the exhibition and its associ- ated events, while the second half contains a wider range of texts and images, creating a more expansive context for the current project. Roland / issue 2 / June—augusT 2009 POOr. Old. Tired. HOrse / Gallery Guide Poor. old. Tired. Horse. ian hamilTon finlay room one Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. is an exhibition of separate initiatives by swiss and Brazil- art that verges on poetry. The exhibition ian writers, and it went on to become an starts with work from the 1960s, and with international phenomenon in the 1960s, a group of artists who are associated with gaining adherents in many countries and the Concrete poetry movement that flour- extending out of the literary sphere and ished during that decade. The movement into the art world. can be taken as a symbol of the cross- The first room in this exhibition pollination between art and literature concentrates on the work of the scottish that was a feature of the 1960s, but the artist and writer ian hamilton finlay, exhibition goes on to look at other artistic who was a key figure in the Concrete practices from this era that explored the poetry movement in Britain. moreover, intersection of the graphic and the poetic, the exhibition takes its title from a peri- Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. and concludes with a group of younger odical that finlay ran from 1962 to 1968, no 18, Wild hawthorn press artists who place such concerns at the and which featured his own graphic and heart of their work. literary experiments alongside those of As a genre, concrete poetry is other artists and poets.1 finlay, in one of understood as poetry in which the visual his aphoristic assertions, maintained that ian hamilton finlay’s associations with the Concrete in 1966 he began to work directly in the landscape at manifestation of words is as impor- “stupidity reduces language to words”. poetry movement begin in the early 1960s, around his home in stonypath, in the hills outside edinburgh. tant in conveying the intended effect as The current exhibition challenges this the time that he founded Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. finlay’s most famous creation is his garden, little finlay would go on to become the most important sparta, a fusion of poetic and sculptural elements with the more conventional elements in the reduction and, like finlay and his col- concrete poet in Britain, with work that paid homage the natural landscape, and which employs the classical, poem. The genre has ancient roots, and laborators, seeks to demonstrate the rich to the Japanese haiku, and to the Carolingian revolutionary and martial imagery that would be a scholar-poets, as well as to the modernist avant- feature of his later work. notable examples were created in the possibilities of language when mani- garde. he would also become one of the key early twentieth century by the french fested not only as poetry but as image. promoters of the Concrete poetry movement in this ian hamilton finlay was born in the Bahamas in 1925, country, through his publishing and correspondence. but spent most of his life in scotland. he published writer guillaume apollinaire, and by the The exhibition features a display of printed his first volume of short stories in the early1950 s, and dadaists. however, as a movement Con- mark sladen ephemera by finlay—including copies of Poor. in 1961 he founded the Wild hawthorn press, which 1950 Old. Tired. Horse.—and two of his concrete poems printed his prolific output of poems, cards and booklets crete poetry had its roots in the s, in iCa director of exhibitions realised as wall paintings.1 as well as Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. his career was long Finlay would come to feel confined by the and varied, and included a solo exhibition at the iCa in acceptance of the Concrete poetry movement by a 1992. finlay died in 2006. wider public, and would disassociate himself from it in the later 1960s. his own practice was constantly 1. In his later career, finlay often chose to realise texts as wall developing, however, and he continued to experiment paintings, recreating his older poems or creating new pieces. 1. The phrase “poor. old. Tired. horse.” originated in a poem by with the idea of giving form to syntax. in the early The wall paintings were often made in partnership with les edge, Robert Creeley. who has executed the installations at the iCa. one of the works 1960s, finlay made a number of ‘poem objects’, at the iCa is sea Poppy i, which is based on a concrete poem which frequently took the form of stone pieces, and from 1968 that uses the codes of shipping boats. 4 5 Roland / issue 2 / June—augusT 2009 POOr. Old. Tired. HOrse / Gallery Guide room Two dom sylvesTeR henRi feRdinand houÉdaRd Chopin KRiWeT The second room in the exhibition con- dom sylvester houédard—or ‘dsh’, as he called henri Chopin is a key figure within experimental ferdinand Kriwet is a multimedia artist who has himself—is, with ian hamilton finlay, one art and literature in the post-war years, as an artist engaged with text, language and concrete poetry tains work by a number of artists who, of the two principle founders of the Concrete and writer, but also as a highly active curator, editor, since the 1960s. Kriwet’s Text signs, 1968, a set of like finlay, were associated with the poetry movement in Britain.1 houédard began designer and publisher. in 1958, Chopin founded which are shown in the iCa’s lower gallery, are experimenting with what he called ‘typestracts’ in the review Cinquième saison, which became Ou in made from stamped aluminium. The format implies Concrete poetry movement, demonstrat- the 1940s, and developed a highly distinctive style of 1964 and ran until 1974. over the course of its life, a commercial function, and the pieces resonate with ing some of the range of positions that it typewritten visual poetry, using coloured typewriter this journal brought together figures associated advertising culture. however, Kriwet’s circular use ribbons and carbon papers. When Concrete poetry with dada, surrealism, lettrisme, fluxus and Beat of text also has strong associations with the mandala, embraced. This room also features other emerged as an international movement in the early poetry, as well as innovators of Concrete poetry— an indian form imbued with spiritual significance artists who emerged in the 1960s and 70s 1960s, houédard became—through his legendary including ian hamilton finlay. in Buddhism and hinduism. moreover, it has the letter writing—one of its most active participants, Chopin was an advocate of interdisciplinary function of disrupting the linear process of writing, and who—though sometimes known for advocates and theorists. production and multi-sensory art, echoing Raoul as words and names join together or are juxtaposed very different affiliations—created work The work of houédard is notable for its hausmann’s view that “We are able to speak and to suggest a clashing and fusing of ideas. extraordinary formal discipline, for its exploration write, because we hear with our eyes and we see Kriwet’s signs, like finlay’s landscape pieces that offers interesting parallels to that of the multiple combinations of letterforms and with our ears.”1 Ou was notable for its inclusion and wall paintings, were an attempt to move of the concrete poets. We now associate words, and for its examination of the spatial of recordings of sound poetry—the area in which concrete poetry quite literally into the world. 1960 possibilities of the page. he saw Concrete poetry Chopin himself is probably most famous as an artist. The use of the sign form to contest subjects such the deployment of text in s art with as an extension of an ancient tradition of shaped This exhibition includes a number of Chopin’s as militarism and sexuality, and to co-opt the public the use of written instructions or records verse, and his works are allied to notions of mystical ‘typewriter poems’ from the 1960s and 70s, which inscription of power, is also an interesting precedent contemplation. his interest in mysticism also reflect another key aspect of the artist’s work: a for the work of Jenny holzer and other artists in within Conceptual practice, or of adver- encouraged him to explore Buddhism and hinduism, fascination with the relationship between order the 1980s. The circular form is further explored in tising language within pop, but these and some of his works echo the mystic-psychedelic and disorder, a preoccupation deeply rooted in his Kriwet’s Text dias and Text sails, 1970, giant signs imagery of the hippy era. experience of war.