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BORN TO CONCRETETHE HEIDE COLLECTION

When
16 April – 25 September 2011
Location
Heide Modern
Admission

Free with Museum Pass

Free entry

Curator/s
Katarina Paseta & Linda Short

Presenting works from the Heide Collection and Concrete Poetry Archive, this exhibition examines the emergence of Concrete Poetry in Australia in the mid-1960s and its subsequent developments.

Concrete Poetry is a cross pollination between art and literature that takes many forms including typed words on a page, lettraset, printmaking, sculpture, found objects, photography and more.

An avant-garde movement with a wide international reach, Concrete Poetry evolved in the 1950s in separate but concurrent initiatives by Swiss writer Eugen Gomringer and Brazillian writers, The Noigandres Group. It transformed the definition of what poetry could be by expanding the written and phonic possibilities of language beyond standard printed or spoken forms. Concrete poets aspired to create poetry that would ‘exist in the world’.

Sweeney Reed
Rose I
1977
embossed etching, edition
16.5 x 15.5 cm
Gift of Pamela, Mishka and Danila McIntosh 1990
© Estate of Sweeney Reed

Sweeney Reed
Rose I
1977
embossed etching, edition
16.5 x 15.5 cm
Gift of Pamela, Mishka and Danila McIntosh 1990
© Estate of Sweeney Reed

Aleks Danko
Poetic Suicide
2008-9
engraving on gravoply, stainless steel screws
59 x 42 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
© the artist

Aleks Danko
Poetic Suicide
2008-9
engraving on gravoply, stainless steel screws
59 x 42 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
© the artist

Alex Selenitsch
monoton eeeeeee
1969
plastic letters on enamel on composition board
71.5 x 4 x 59 cm
Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011
© Alex Selenitsch

Alex Selenitsch
monoton eeeeeee
1969
plastic letters on enamel on composition board
71.5 x 4 x 59 cm
Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011
© Alex Selenitsch

The title of this exhibition, Born to Concrete, takes its name from the first Australian journal dedicated solely to concrete poetry. Published in the early 1970s, the journal is representative of the vibrant local publishing initiatives of experimental artists and poets during this period.

The exhibition focuses on the work of Sweeney Reed, Alan Riddell and Alex Selenitsch, all of whom were central figures in the development of Concrete Poetry in Australia. This new form of visual poetry was soon taken up by others, including Ruth Cowen, Aleks Danko, Jas H. Duke, Peter Murphy, TT.O, Mike Parr and Richard Tipping.

The exhibition also presents a selection of works by Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay, an early exponent of Concrete Poetry, whose influence resonates in many of the works on display. Sweeney Reed was introduced to Finlay while he was based in London in the 1960s and the two maintained a connection throughout Reed’s lifetime, a relationship that is explored for the first time in this exhibition.

Heide Museum of Modern Art has amassed one of the most extensive collections of Concrete Poetry in Australia through the generosity of individual gifts and two significant donations: the Sweeney Reed Estate and Barrett Reid Bequest.

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