con creta - Leiria

 Having done virtually no research about Leiria before I arrived, I was very enamored with it - a very charming little town, given what I imagine was an extra frisson by the near complete decoration of the centre for Christmas. I was a bit early for the start of the letra festival, so I visited the Banco das artes galeria for an exhibition of (primarily) drawing by Álvaro Siza – Drawings. Banco das Artes Galeria, Leiria. Obviously I'm very familiar with his architecture (his famous School of Architecture is at the end of our street), but his drawings were a revelation. No Photos allowed so you can look it up. 

con creta catalogue

Then I went to the Galeria Quattro for an installation of concrete poetry from the collection of Fernando Aguiar curated by Sal Nunkachov. 

From there we moved to Sal's miraculous shop/workshop of concrete and sound poetry Paperviewbooks  where I bought what must be the book of my year Derek Beaulieu's Catalogue Saisonée  and Christian Bok's new (blue) umlautmachine 

Sadly, I had to return to Porto before the evening performances but Christian will be coming north for a few days next so I'll find out what I missed. 

letra: mostra de poesia sonora e concreta leiria 30 de novembro de 2024

 

letra

mostra de poesia sonora e concreta

leiria 30 de novembro de 2024

Carolina Drave

Christian Bök

Cia Rinne

Diogo Marques

Fernando Aguiar

Nuno Moura

Paula Cortes

Simão Collares

For more information:

Paper View Independent Publishing

The Last International Poetry Dog Day

This would have been the 15th birthday of Barney, the famous Poetry Dog - he missed it by one month. We have been touched by the outpouring of condolence for him. So I thought a last acknowledgement of his status in the Poetry World was a suitable memorial. 

Ron Silliman, Tony Lopez, Tony Trehy, Christian Bök (Text Festival)

Saari

Back in Helsinki from Saari. Unfortunately I forgot the camera lead so I can’t up load any photos, but Geof Huth has been blogging extensively what it is like. I arrived on Thursday and went virtually straight into my talk. I mainly surveyed the last two Text Festivals and compared text works that I had seen at the Basel Art Fair shows and the disappointing ICA show. I also responded to the question that has been bouncing around the workshop (according to the blogs) which is “What is the difference between a vispo and a graphic designer?” it seems to me that this is the wrong question, instead I asked “What is the difference between a vispo and a visual artist?” Generally it was felt that the answer to both questions is the same – poets don’t get paid. Christian Bök’s line was most interesting - that the reason why poetry can’t compete in artistic status is economic – the price of failure in poetry is so low as opposed to the 'capital investment' of say visual arts. In addition, unlike most other artforms, it isn’t possible for poetry to support the infrastructure of auxiliary business, ie there isn’t enough money in it to allow agents, gallerists, publishers, etc, to make profit from its re-sale. However, the distinction between the two questions is actually one of self-esteem. There are obvious stylistic and technical similarities between some vispo and some graphic design practice but implicit in the relation to graphics is the lack of connection between vispo and visual art. This is the vispo problem.

After my talk, Leevi Lehto talked (see Geof’s blog) and we had a dinner of fabulous Finnish smoked salmon with potatos, vegetables and a salad expertly dressed by Mr. Bök. The rest of the evening was great conversation and beer. All being well, Christian will be doing a project in the next Text Festival.

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bok/