eyedrum :: atlanta

a message from the curator of the visual poetry show at eyedrum

brought to you in part by:

The eyedrum literary committee

Conclusion:  Positioned properly, pretty much anything can be a visual poem.

When I first considered the idea of creating a visual poem, I was unable to approach it. Annoyed, I dismissed it. It always fascinated me,tho.  When shown something bearing that title, that specific categorization, I felt left in a lurch. A sort of pulling or nagging. I wanted to come to what I was looking at from between spaces. There was a need to blur notions that I wasn’t even sure unto themselves I could define.  I thought perhaps what I looked for came from a place beneath or in the bedding of the very desire to make a mark.  The act of creating a visual poem for me became a thing that quickly became functional or not. Very pass/fail. Very cool or very cheesy. The gray area (the liminal space-that maxed-out edge of sensory perception) it suggested was something that it clearly did not allow for in the actual manifestations of a visual poem. The results I found tiresome or obvious tended towards what  was consider the obvious answers : Creating visuals with text or creating text with visuals.  History shows explorations of this kind of work and while, yes, it is “visual poetry”,  there seemed a need to be open to my internal reactions.   Regardless of names like concrete or asemic , I sensed that it intended to point to something more fully encompassing, revealing by some unforced release a place of perception that is very fundamental.

Just saying “visual poetry” in itself has implications that begin and end with it.  The rest is in the experience, or felt in the moment the work is glanced, or read, or perused.  I found myself thinking of how the muscle of the iris defines a pupil, the infinite curiosity of black holes, the old joke about ” losing a buttonhole “, or even the gratification felt in apologizing for something that is not your fault.  I also was reminded of a game I used to play where I would go to choose not what music I wanted to hear the most, but the music I wished to hear the least. It is an entirely different process that explores a strange conundrum of honesty in the final decision.

In the end, it seemed the show wanted no title. No big nicely rendered name welcoming guests to the beginning of their experience.  The entry had only a strangely crass visual poem to guide viewers in. Ambiguous and crude, the intent- that I am sure failed-was in itself a self-serving act, a gesture to the notion that this experience was entirely yours. You were on your own more than respect would even indicate.  I had applied my narrow idea of what classified as appropriate.

In this process of presenting visual poetry,  I was reminded of Dubuffet remarking about his process of collecting art made by insane poeple. He said (and im paraphrasing): It makes as much sense to keep all of it as it does to throw it all away.

The acute awareness  of process in pulling this show together seemed to run in tandem with the theme of the show itself (as well as the name of the gallery it was shown in). Visual poetry:  Where does it begin and where does it end…when does it start being one thing or the other?  And why the hell is this question even necessary???  I carried the show on and over into the bathroom, where it can exist in yet another place that publicly questions where an art experience begins.  The phases this beast went thru (is now forever going thru) to properly present itself were funny.  I can’t say I enjoyed them entirely.  The left wall of the show is highly self-referential, ambiguous, and maybe even a bit selfish. It vaguely addresses the process itself,  the act of doing an art show. The pieces are technically visual poems, charged with a sort of awareness that is almost awkward.

Work from visual poets all over the world were featured in this exhibition. All of them were respected. Their work in each case shows an ability to process and create in a way that endlessly baffles and intrigues me.  I am happy to say that this experience blurred many edges and tapped into much that is at the core of why people create.

-words by eggtooth