Art/Language/Form/Material

Meanwhile, as I am quietly thinking of the connections between the different arts (cinema, music, literature, painting, sculpture, etc), MoMA comes out with an exhibition which combines art and language.

'Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language' brings together historical and contemporary works of art that treat language not merely as a system of communication governed by grammatical rules and assigned meanings, but as a material that can be manipulated with creative freedom, like paint, clay, or any other artistic medium

Paint, words, voices, light, and objects are all used in the works exhibited, there is no discrimination or lines drawn to define which medium belongs to which artform. On the exhibition's webpage the text even discusses the departure from language within the contemporary work "The second section presents an installation of contemporary works, most of which do away with the page; some do away with writing altogether."

The exhibition offers visual poetry, puns on disks by Duchamp, moving image work, collages, sound works, dial-a-poem (see third image), and also a beautiful colour offset printed book which looks like a rainbow block. If you are in NY, do me a favour and Dial-A-Poem and let me know what you think!

You can read more on the MoMA website.