IMMATERIAL ART at LA KUNSTHALLE in MULHOUSE, France--4 talks in spring 2013!

Photo by French poet Déborah Heissler

ART / PERFORMANCE is actually happening here in Mulhouse. Yes. All of the time, perhaps. Of course we are just a mini-hop to Basel here on the Easternmost coast of France. Basel is an art hub, land of the annual gigantic Art Basel foire in June, but here in Mulhouse there are also some really awesome people who are not only bringing art to the Mulhouse scene, but who are also trying to unpack the word "ART". Mulhouse is about to take "ART" out of its visual limitations and turn it upside down, bringing it into the realms of performance, dance, poetry--and also dialogue around all that art is (and perhaps isn't). Last year there were a series of 4 talks on art in the spring for the SUAC  of UHA and La Kunsthalle, and this year the project is returning--with 4 very very exciting speakers: BEATRICE JOSSE, MICHEL COLLET, MATHIEU COPELAND and PATRICK MARCOLINI. For all the info, and to sign up to attend the events being planned, here is the announcement sent out by La Kunsthalle and le SUAC of UHA--and thanks Isabelle Lefevre (who really is La Reine of the SUAC! At UHA she has been making art and literature happen in so many ways. For example, having supported projects I was involved in last spring (2012) like hosting readings with Viriginie Poitrasson at the BU on campus or supporting Lex-ICON with readers and artists!) and the Kunsthalle group--in particular Sandrine Wymann and Emilie Georges who have made the Ecrire l'art mini-residencies bringing poets to Mulhouse possible since fall of 2011. (FYI: The next ECRIRE L'ART will be in MARCH 2013--so check back here and on la Kunsthalle site for full info on that, too!) Here is the Kunsthalle and the SUAC's announcement for their spring series of talks on IMMATERIAL ART:

La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, le Service Universitaire de l’Action Culturelle de l’Université de Haute-Alsace  et la Haute école des arts du Rhin ont le plaisir de vous proposer :

Cours Publics 2013

L’art immatériel

Un cycle de 4 cours de 1h30

en février et mars

Ouvert à tous, sur inscription

Cours Publics est un cycle de cours proposé conjointement par le Service Universitaire de l’Action Culturelle de l’Université de Haute-Alsace, la Haute école des arts du Rhin et La Kunsthalle.

Autour d’une thématique, quatre intervenants présentent un courant artistique, un pan de l’histoire de l’art permettant de recontextualiser la création contemporaine.

Les cours, assurés par des personnalités universitaires ou du monde de l’art sont ouverts à tous, sur inscription.

CALENDRIER DES COURS dispensés au Grand Amphithéâtre de la Fonderie de 18h30 à 20h

Jeudi 14 février 2013

Les situationnistes : au-delà de l’art ? par Patrick Marcolini

Jeudi 7 mars 2013

L’art performance : débordements et immatériel par Michel Collet

Jeudi 14 mars 2013

Exposer l’immatériel par Mathieu Copeland

Jeudi 21 mars 2013

Des révélations autour d’une collection invisible ! par Béatrice Josse

Modalités d’inscription

Inscription uniquement par courrier auprès du Service Universitaire de l’Action Culturelle de l’Université de Haute-Alsace :

Maison de l’Etudiant – Campus Illberg

1, rue Werner 68100 Mulhouse

Tram: Université

Tarif plein : 25 euros / tarif réduit 10 euros pour l’ensemble des conférences

 

Bulletin téléchargeable et plus d'infos sur : www.kunsthallemulhouse.com

Pour tout renseignement concernant l’inscription s’adresser au Service Universitaire de l’Action Culturelle de l’Université de Haute-Alsace : 03 89 33 64 76 / isabelle.lefevre@uha.fr

La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, centre d’art contemporain

La Fonderie

16, rue de la Fonderie

(F) 68093 Mulhouse Cedex

Tél. +33 (0)3 69 77 66 47

kunsthalle@mulhouse.fr

www.kunsthallemulhouse.com

Transmissibility & Cultural Transfer: Dimensions of Translation in the Humanities

Soon available (PRE-ORDER now?)!  "TRANSMISIBILITY AND CULTURAL TRANSFER: DIMENSIONS OF TRANSLATION IN THE HUMANITIES" edited by Jennifer K Dick and Stephanie Schwerter at IBIDEM-Verlag, Hannover/Stuttgart (200 pages, Paperback. 2012; ISBN 978-3-8382-0402-4): http://www.ibidemverlag.de/Publisher-s-List/Social-Sciences/Transmissibility-and-Cultural-Transfer--Dimensions-of-Translation-in-the-Humanities.html

THE STORY OF OUR TWO FORTHCOMING BOOKS.... starting with this one!:

Stephanie Schwerter and I embarked upon the near-impossible a few years ago in May 2010 when we threw together a conference on translation in the social sciences with only a shoestring budget (see the blog from this event: http://traductiontransmissibilite.blogspot.fr/). We in fact were helped invaluably by funding from the EHESS & the MSH of Paris as well as unexpected last minute support thanks to the American Embassy in Paris' Culture and Education Office--which allowed both young and experienced American scholars come and speak at our event. It was a tornado of a conference, with double-barrel seances meaning we could--hélas--not catch everything at once. It was a conference full of bright ideas and dynamic speakers (again, see our blog for full details on all of those who were present, and to read abstracts of their talk) as well as a great sliver of authors and literary translators from Canada, Luxembourg, France, the USA, Lebanon and Argentina who not only spoke but also gave a post-conference reading for IVY Writers Paris: http://ivywritersparis.blogspot.fr/2010/05/transmissibility-lectures-le-12-mai.html for full details. 

Steph and I were like waterlogged cats afterwards, thrilled with our encounters with so many scholars from such a vast array of areas, enlightened, glowing with all they had spoken about an made us aware of. 

We soon began the long, slow climb towards publication--and I will announce in Spring the 2013 edition in French of a massive tome which has resulted from this conference, and which is forthcoming with the MSH of Paris. But what about the speakers and authors in English? We had in fact been contacted by a UK magazine requesting we supply them with selected works in English resulting from this conference for a special edition. So we got everyone to send in their exciting work and expected a series of articles to appear shortly thereafter in the UK. The magazine editor responded with great zest confirming that he had also adored the works presented and wished to publish them all... but time passed and no further word appeared. It came to that point where a query must be sent off, like a bottled message tossed out to see. And it was with distress that we learned that there had been one of those passing of the bars, changing of the guard, and the editor had headed off on some political self-exploration project in journalism far from the pile of exciting, glowing articles he had accepted. What to do? 

Stephanie--being German--suggested we revamp the project and revise how the works came together and make a real book on the topic. We went through a process of reading, selection, editing, organizing, including requesting specific developments and changes to the texts that had been sent off for the magazine, updating the research and adding dialogue between the reflections presented to us. In the end, Stephanie and I settled on a tightly selected set of essays making up a volume in two parts--a small selection of 4 specific case studies whose reflections far exceeded their particularities as cases (thus rendering them perfect for the edition) preceded by a first half of the book on theoretical and applied translation theories specific to the social sciences. We presented the project to Ibidem-Verlag in Germany and found that the collection interested them. Of course, the publication did not then POOF appear overnight--it has been a long haul of editing, corrections, alterations, revisions. Perfecting, we hope! And now... the book is on the threshold of the stage, about to enter. Yes, we are thrilled to announce that it should be out this winter!

The authors of the chapters of this book--Jean-René Ladmiral, Peter Caws to start off with (and see below for the full table of contents) address areas in the humanities such as philosophy and sociology; As the reader progresses through this book, the chapters speak to one another and the reflections therein extend into the political and linguistic ramifications of what these authors have to say about culture, language and thought--about our need to question the origin of many of the ideas we take for granted, these ideas we treat as if they've emerged in an English mind, with Anglophone cultural and national references--which is so far from the truth. Where to begin reconsidering the way we treat so many well-known translated books as if they are written in our native tongue? And why even do that? This book will certainly provide many ways of looking at the answers to these questions, and many many more.

To get a peek at what is inside, read our blurb on the IBIDEM-Verlag site at: http://www.ibidemverlag.de/Publisher-s-List/Social-Sciences/Transmissibility-and-Cultural-Transfer--Dimensions-of-Translation-in-the-Humanities.html Or just get a sense of the volume from the Table of Contents below:

Table of Contents  : 

Introduction: Jennifer K Dick & Stephanie Schwerter             

 

Part I. Theoretical Reflections on the Uniqueness of Translation in the Humanities

Jean-René Ladmiral: Sourcerers and Targeters

Peter Caws: How Many Languages how Many Translations?

Elad Lapidot: Translating Philosophy

Thibaut Rioufreyt: The Role of Actors in the International Circulation of Ideas

Nicolas Marcucci: The Quest for Obligation: “Translating” Classical Sociological Languages through Moral and Political Vocabulary

Salah Basalamah: Social Translations: Challenges in the Conflict of Representations

 

Part II: Case Studies

Angela Feeney: Jacques Ferron – Writer and Translator

Christophe Ippolito: Literary Translation: From Cultural Capital to Dialogism

Henry Leperlier: Translation and Distortion of Linguistic Identities in Sinophone Cinema: Diverging Images of the “Other”

Nadine Rentel: Translating Cultural Values in Marketing Communication?A Cross-cultural Pragmatic Analysis of French and German Magazine Advertising

(Book Cover image, Dr Fred Dee, MD, used courtesy of the University of Iowa Virtual Slidebox (Histology Atlas) at http://www.path.uiowa.edu/virtualslidebox/)

Reading in LONDON Nov 2nd--COME ONE, COME ALL!

I am very very excited to be getting away from the MULHOUSE cold and to check out LONDON's cold this bonfire day weekend--and to be READING with other DUSIE press and kollectiv poets at THE APPLE TREE CLERKENWELL

Here's the info on when, where and what: HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!: 

Dusie Kollectiv & Friends: 
A Poetry Reading
Friday Nov. 2, 7.30
The Apple Tree, 45 Mount Pleasant
London WC1X 2AE.
Nearest Tube Chancery Lane or buses from Holborn and King’s Cross
On facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/275272299257296/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Readers:
Jennifer K Dick
Giles Goodland
Linus Godwin-Slug reading for Harry Godwin
Jeff Hilson
Sarah Rosenthal
Carol Watts &
Tilla Brading!

BIOS:

Jennifer K Dick is the author of Fluorescence (2004) & Circuits (2012) as well as 3 chapbooks, including Tracery (Dusie Kollectiv 5, 2011) and Betwixt (Corrupt 2012). She lives in France where she teaches at UHA. She curates the Ivy Writers Paris bilingual reading series in Paris & co-organizes the Ecrire L'Art French reading mini-residency in Mulhouse. She is a poetry editor for VERSAL magazine out of Amsterdam & a regular book reviewer for Drunken Boat (USA) and Tears in the Fence (UK). Her blog ishttp://jenniferkdick.blogspot.com/

Harry Godwin has had 2 children since leaving London. His press, Arthur Shilling, is on a hiatus & he's not produced much work either. Coincidence?

Linus Godwin-Slug was born on 16th September. He keeps chickens, grows beards, rears slugs, lives in Devon, lives in London, travels to Northumberland, home of the Angles. Since being separated from his moustache, his feet haven't left Devon, except for a disastrous foray into Cornwall, where his sideburns were nearly ripped off. His moustache now roams the land, seeking opportunities and upper-lips to read poems.

Giles Goodland was part of two Dusie Kollektivs. One of them, 'from Gloss' later turned into Gloss, from the Knives Forks and Spoons press. His most recent book is The Dumb Messengers from Salt.

Jeff Hilson's recent publications include stretchers (Reality Street, 2006), ed. The Reality Street Book of Sonnets (Reality Street, 2008), Bird bird (Landfill, 2009) and In The Assarts (Veer, 2010) and he is currently working on a sequence called Organ Music. He teaches Creative Writing at Roehampton University, London and runs the reading series Xing the Line.

Sarah Rosenthal is the author of Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil), The Animal (Dusie), sitings (a+bend), not-chicago (Melodeon), and How I Wrote This Story (Margin to Margin). Her book of interviews, A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area, was published by Dalkey Archive in 2010. She serves on the poetry jury for the California Book Awards, teaches in the University of San Francisco’s MFA program, and writes curricula for Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, California.

Carol Watts lives in London. Her recent dusie chap is Good Life Redact #1. Her books include Occasionals and Sundog, and the chapbook Mother Blake.

Tilla Brading, poet, performer and textual artist, teaches creative writing as well as working most of her life with students with a variety of Learning Difficulties. Brought up in Ystradfellte, Powys she was joint editor of PQR (Poetry Quarterly Review) and assistant Custodian of Coleridge Cottage, where the poet lived, in Nether Stowey, Somerset. Her poetry has appeared widely in a variety of magazines and on-line i.e. Shearsman, Oasis, Fire, Staple, Terrible Work, HOW 2, Great Works etc.. Her most recent publications are :Stone Settings (with Frances Presley). Odyssey Books & Other Press, 2010 & Grid. Dusie Kollektiv, 2012

For more about Dusie Kollectiv, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusie 

or see the most recent DUSIE Kollectiv & read the chaps online at: http://www.dusie.org/issue12.html

RoToR: recueil de 5 premiers numéros--FREE online!

Virginie Poitrasson poem in RoToR 5

 It was a great honor to be given "carte blanche" by RoToR to select artists and authors for one of their fabulous mini reviews online. It is a sort of turning--where each poet sees only the poem of the previous poet, and the artist sees only the first poem. The works are like a game of telephone, and in the case of the 5 first issues of RoToR there is a wonderful sense of discovery and SPIN taking place. SO, for those of you interested--the issues are online and FREE in a downloadable Pdf. See all 5 issues together via the weblink: 

http://corner.as.corner.free.fr/rotorI.html Or just go directly for the PDF of the 5 at http://corner.as.corner.free.fr/RTR-recueil1-web.pdf

I selected work for issue 5 (pp31-41) but found it thrilling to see how this issues and the ones preceding it also dialogue in a communal Pdf format. If you dislike reading onscreen--that first link gives you a great print-option, so print out RoToR and read it on the page! ENJOY and THANKS to ANNE KAWALA for all her work and inventiveness founding this journal and her kindness for inviting me to partake in the experiment. 

Fred Forte poem for RoToR n° 5

New poems online at The Drunken Boat and in print this August in Clock magazine issue 3!

I have felt really lucky this year with a few sollicitations to submit work for consideration to magazines. One in particular sent along a theme poem sample by Jacques Roubaud and I took that as an invite to try playing around with a response. 

So, it is with great pleasure that I announce the appearance of a small series of 6 new prose poems from the ongoing collaboration with Amanda Deutch (my part has thus far been intitled BETWIXT) as well as the poem I wrote in response to Jacques Roubaud's On the Plurality of Worlds of Lewis 

These 7 poems are now online at THE DRUNKEN BOAT! AT: http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/JenniferK.Dick.html To see contributor bios of all the very very exciting authors in this issue and then read their great works, too, see: http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/poetpge23.html  or go to the root page for this Summer's The Drunken Boat issue at: http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/

I am also thrilled to announce the print publication in CLOCK Magazine issue 3 of my poems Another Early Obsession and CODA (the closing poem from my forthcoming book CIRCUITS soon out from Corrupt Press). http://www.oclockpress.com/index.php?/project/clock-magazine/ to keep your eyes peeled for the moment when you can order a copy! Or to order back issues! Clock 3 will feature work by 

Cecilia Corrigan

Jennifer K Dick

Laura Elrick

Bethany Ides

Josef Kaplan

Trisha Low

Daniel Owen

Mario Santiago Papasquiaro

Judah Rubin

Jacqueline Waters

Lynn Xu

and

Jenny Zhang

Clock Magazine is run by the editors of O'Clock book publishers--pick up one of their books via their site here: http://www.oclockpress.com/index.php?/project/chapbooks/

And for anyone that has missed other recent publications online by me--I have work in FRINGE and in Big Bridge. Check out my earlier blog posts for info on those! Thank you so so much for reading! And much love to all from here in gorgeous GREECE! Land of poetry, certainly!

My story-poem BREACH is now deCLASSIFIED on FRINGE MAGAZINE issue 31

Nicolas de Staël

"The girl who is reading outside the window on the small terraced balcony in the hour or so after sunrise, wind a kind of fist pressed or pressing against her chest, turns a page..."

This is how my little story-poem BREACH begins. It has just appeared online in the magazine FRINGE. 

I love that I fall into the [de]Classified section of FRINGE MAGAZINE (Issue 31, Summer '12) and am excited to have this little prose piece BREACH out in the world. 

The sea, Antibes, places that one wants to go on a summer night, and the painting in the place of Nicolas de Staël, that leap, this other...  Hope you will enjoy!

The interesting feature of FRINGE is that each issue emerges over time, inviting the reader back and back again to discover the month or season's writing and art as it gets posted. For now, I am thrilled and very flattered to head up this new SUMMER issue along with artist Travis Champion. http://www.fringemagazine.org/issues/issue-31-summer-12/

But DO check back with FRINGE as MORE will appear in issue 31 in the days and weeks to come! Again: http://www.fringemagazine.org/ to read work by me and to see artwork by Travis Campion

If you get impatient for more, check out their back issues, including the SPRING issue 30

Le  fort  carré d'Antibes  (Nicolas  de Staël )

 

It's Lexi-a go go!

Yes, my life is all things Lex-ICON (<--click to go to that blog). I am in fact totally EXCITED by this, even though I am worried that something will go wrong--the whole projector explodes and destroys a painting which catches on fire and we are all sprinting out of some university building only we can't get out because the doors are entirely locked and YES it IS a big old nightmare.

But no. It will go great. People will be happy. They will learn things. Love new art and writing. Write books and perhaps marry someone they meet at Lex-ICON. The conference will go on and on and never stop... or just be a conference like a lot of others? Hopefully that, at least.

But as you can all tell, I am in prep and press and please do not leave us alone in these spaces with this gorgeous work mode. After all, our art show will knock your socks off--even if I do not manage to hang and project everything ideally, it should be pretty great because the artists are--Gary Hill, Robert Cahen, Sarah Riggs, Alessandro De Francesco, Marc Thébault, Richard Meier and R-Diffusion and the project from the blog artists as well. And then some great opening talk will happen, emerging from the mind of Jacinto Lageira. This, to compound our pleasure will be followed by a projection and talk by Alessandro De Franceso then a reading of Michelle Naka Pierce's new book on Rothko and to close off our day there will be a curator round table before we go off to my favorite local modern art hangout, La Kunsthalle for LOCUS METROPOLE--La Kunsthalle where coolness oozes from the glass and cement walls, if not from the amazing people working there and running the show!

But as I am blogging like a maniac for Lex-ICON and having FUN as I discover the images--for example--of the authors who are the subject of the BD talks (Shaun Tan was a real eye awakener, and I also love the humor of Vincent Sardon). I also feel I have looked more closely at what Leila Brett is doing, and how, and am thrilled she will be talking about her work, her process, the making of the oeuvres you can find online by here and which I am sure simply tremble with their force when you are lucky enough to encounter them in person. SO, to share with you my bloggerorama postings, so that you, too, can begin to revel in all things Lex-ICON, here are the posts for each of the ateliers of the conference. I am posting from the afternoon of the 8th here through the 10th and will return and fill in the earlier posts once I get them up--likely be tomorrow. Enjoy, share, do some of that +1ing to help us feel loved, like us on facebook and twitter about us and then go read and watch some of the things people at our conference are talking about--as that is really the highest, the true praise--when you love the topic they have made you realize exists. An encounter takes place, beyond text and page...

LE 8 JUIN 2012

8 juin matin : atelier 1 rétrospectives

http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/8-juin-de-9h-11h-atelier-1.html

8 juin fin de matinée : atelier 2 le langage plastique 

http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/le-8-juin-de-11h-12h30-atelier-2-le.html

8 juin début d’aprème : atelier 3 le livre dans tous ses états

http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/8-juin-de-14h15-16h15-atelier-3-le.html

8 juin fin d’aprème : La BD…

http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/8-juin-de-16h45-18h15-atelier-4-la-bd.html

8 juin 18h15 Leila Brette présentation

http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/8-juin-18h15-presentation-par-la.html

8 juin la soirée performance de Jean-Pierre Bobillot :
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/8-juin-19h-20h-soiree-lecture_02.html
LE 9 JUIN 2012 :
9 juin atelier 5 au matin: du mur au livre...
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/9-juin-de-9h-12h-atelier-5-du-mur-au.html
9 juin atelier 6 l’après midi: …le domaine numérique…
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/9-juin-de-14-17h-atelier-6-limage-et-le.html
9 juin atelier 7 à la fin d'aprème : journaux et créations
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/9-juin-de-17-18h-atelier-7-journaux-et.html
9 juin La table ronde d'éditeurs
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/9-juin-18-19h30-table-ronde-des.html
9 juin soirée STIMULATION à la Kunsthalle de Mulhouse
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/9-juin-18-19h30-table-ronde-des.html
10 juin de 12-16h30 Lex-Balades en ville :
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/06/10-juin-lex-balades-de-12h-16h-series.html
Merci de faire circuler ces liens ou simplement le lien pour le programme qui reste le:
http://lex-icon21.blogspot.fr/2012/05/le-programme-pour-lex-icon-colloque.html

IVY WRITERS new venue: CAFE DELAVILLE in Paris!

Anne Kawala, Esther Salmona et Heather Hartley will give a bilingual reading for IVY WRITERS PARIS on the 29th of May 2012 at 7:30pm and in a totally new, exciting spot for IVY--CAFE DELAVILLE! (see their site for full info on them: http://www.delavillecafe.com/index.php) 

 

You will come in past the fabulous outside terrasse and go up a set of stairs stopping for a GREAT drink at the bar and then will take to the lovely staircase at the back (shown here at left) Upstairs, all will be light, laughter and poetry! Hope you can join us! 

 

IVY WRITERS PARIS, 

Tuesday the 29th of May 

7:30 pm 

At:  CAFE DELAVILLE 

(up-UPSTAIRS)

34, bd Bonne Nouvelle
Paris, 75010

Metro Bonne Nouvelle

(ou 10 min à pied de Strasbourg St Denis)

For full info: see our blog post with bios at: 

 http://ivywritersparis.blogspot.fr/2012/05/anne-kawala-esther-salmona-et-heather.html

 

Also, for anyone dying to get their hands on the beautiful GOLD issue of VERSAL, that is the VERSAL 10 anniversary issue, it will be on sale at IVY! Or else you can get your copy directly online (and see Versal's fun promo video at: 

 

http://www.wordsinhere.com/versalten.htm

 

VERSAL 10 showcases work by the authors listed here--and MORE!:

Du recyclage aux notions du témoignage et de la mémoire: Join Ille for some talks in Mulhouse on May 26th 2012

If you are in Mulhouse next weekend and just do not know what to do with yourself, please join me as I present a talk in French as part of the Ille seminars at the FLSH, Salle Starky, UHA, Mulhouse (tram Illberg) the 26th May 2012 from 9-12h30. 

My talk is intitled: "Du recyclage aux Ready-Mades: la poésie contemporaine réinvente l'espace de la lecture". I am honored to be speaking with Philippe MESNARD from ISTI and the Paris international collège de philosophie whose talk is intitled "Quelques notions du témoignage et de la mémoire, et leur critique". See poster below for full details (click to enlarge image):

ECRIRE L'ART 3: Frédéric Forte à Mulhouse le 27 mai 2012!

Membre d’OULIPO, poète et traducteur, FREDERIC FORTE, sera à Mulhouse cette semaine !  Il fera une lecture dans le cadre de sa mini résidence « Ecrire l’art » le 27 mai 2012 à 15h à la KUNSTHALLE de Mulhouse, la Fonderie, 16 rue de la Fonderie. Il lira des textes qu’il écrira autour de l’exposition de SIMON STARLING « 350kilogrammes par mètre carré » qui ouvrira le 24 mai (vernissage le 23).  

(Click on the image of this poster below to see in larger format:)

Member of Oulipo, poet and translator, Frédéric Forte will be in Mulhouse next week and will read at the end of his short residency "Writing Art" at la Kunsthalle Mulhouse. He will be visiting and writing about the Simon Starling show "350 kilogrammes par mètre carré". Of this show, the Kunsthalle tells us: it is "a solo exhibition of Simon Starling running from the 24th of May to the 26th of August 2012. Starling is seen as one of the most daring British artists on the international scene. Simon Starling will present new pieces at La Kunsthalle which have been created to echo the history and architecture of the Fonderie building, a rehabilitated industrial site. The Contemporary Art Centre has been housed there since 2009, as well as the University of Upper Alsace and the Mulhouse town archives." 

They also add, "Simon Starling has been revisiting the history of forms and questioning ideas about the value, fabrication and status of objects for more than 15 years. His sculptures, installations and journeys are based on acts of transformation or hybridisation, through movement and in situ installations. Starling methodically separates materials from their context in order to find the unexpected links between seemingly distant domains and timeframes." 

For more on this show, or for German or French versions of these quotes, see: http://www.kunsthallemulhouse.com/programmation/exposition-trois-cent-cinquante-kilogrammes-par-metre-carre.php and download their communiqué de presse in pdf versions.

ECRIRE L’ART: 

Ce nouveau cycle d’invitations inédites s’inscrit dans le projet de recherche de la Kunsthalle autour de la médiation. Il  réunit des écrivains et des expositions. Sous la forme de « mini-résidences » de quatre jours, un auteur contemporain s’immerge dans l’univers d’une exposition présentée à la Kunsthalle et compose autour des œuvres exposées. Dialogues, créations, collaborations, poésies visuelles et sonores, textes et expressions permettent de visiter, voir, concevoir et revoir les œuvres à travers le langage spécifique de l’écrivain. Une lecture-performance publique est proposée dans l’espace d’exposition à l’issu de la résidence

Montpellier... avril 2012

A few weeks have passed but the sounds of Montpellier, the quiet of the night, the cobalt lighting on the arcades, all that is already fading into a past. But here is a glimpse back at my first day in the heavenly south--full of quirky moments and captured in a few pics and personal ramblings below... 

On the road--the LOVE of trains. The purrrrrr of the TGV, that occasional odd jolt and screech. Towns whizz by, as the landscape changes--rising and falling against the windows. Weather, too, in a single day's ride might go through as many moods as I, enclosed in the comfort of knowing I'm sealed away from other responsabilities, can only focus work-wise and what is there, along for the ride. For this Mulhouse - Montpellier trek I had the proofs for my new book, Circuits, (coming out soon from Corrupt press).:

Arriving in Montpellier at night, fairly late, I saw little besides the tram and the spiderweb of side-streets angling towards the gorgeous Hôtel des Arceaux where I stayed. In the morning I got up, had a lovely breakfast (with the most amazing mini-POT of really dense, rich coffee and hot milk), then I began to wander. What can I say, I had big plans--walk in one direction and see what was there! 

The blues of being on holiday alone engulfed me. It seemed the overwhite sky, the grey of the stone and trees not yet fully in bud echoed that unformed interrior me.:

But then there was Alexandre Hollan's "Le chemin de l'arbre" (Musée Fabre—Montpellier Fine Arts Museum) and his 4 "écritures d'arbres, série de perceptions" goaches from 2008-2010.

The tree becomes the fibers and veins of the body, a circulatory system. Some lines, almost translucent, faded, wait for their purpose: to be filled again, grow dark and robust, perhaps burst into bud. I stood before them, my eye unable to trace out the pathways among vein-branches which were entirely too complex to visually comprehend. The eye--seeing them as a whole--trusts in their connectivity. They know the way so that our gaze does not have to locate it. 

"La légèrté est une grande force, elle soulève et porte la lourdeur."—Alexandre Hollan had written on the wall above these works. 

The entire weight of leaves would one day be upheld by the veiny branch-structure in these goaches, just as the body survives because of the tiny capillaries, veins, fibers, tendons that hold up the mass of being. The mass and the netting below it. How to make itself into surfaces and hide its force behind them? 

I wandered on, through the museum, on occasion listening in on a group visit or watching art students sketch en masse an apple or a portrait or a building. I admired the ruins of a mosque in snow in Laurens' gorgeous painting "la mosquée bleue, à Tauruis en Perse" (Salon de 1872). A place of path and passage, returning to the earth while above the sky was its cerrulean blue dome. 

Wandering away from the framed figures of nature and back out into the world of real nature, I stumbled upon a wonderfully ridiculous street art performance:

I hung around and watched them for awhile, boxed heads, startled public, a bit of improv between dance and theater. I then caught a film and on the way home to the hotel stopped into a lovely restaurant for dinner opposite the Hotel du Palais (that being behind the Palais du Justice).

KINETICS ?
I was thinking about movement, kinetic energy, passages. How some poeple just pick up a bag and hit the road. Some find themselves alone with a bag along a road. Some people fall asleep and wake up along unfamiliar roads. There, in the restaurant, the tiny pedestrian road outside was small and quiet. The Hotel du Palais sat on one side and the sleepy restaurant and its still-lit terasse sat on the other. A man read his newspaper in the terrasse, alone. (one is always reminded of Hemingway at such moments--of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place). It was too cold for the terrasse but he stayed anyway, read his paper, drank his coffee.

After, he folded the paper neatly, set it atop the table, stood, pulled his jacket back over his shoulders, buttoned up, picked up the paper again. There was a bright light over the hotel door and he glanced at the Hotel's doorway and sign. An XVIII century building--Parisien in style but with only 3 floors above the rez-de-chausée--long windows, thin balconys and tall blue-grey shutters for each window. They were all dark, shutters still open. Vacant, empty, waiting.

A car drove past and three pedestrians strolled by. I looked away as the waitres brought me my dinner and set the plate down in front of me. There were a few couples and a trio in the restaurant. Their voices were gurgling water as they talked in French, English and Italian. I looked back out to see that the lights in the hotel lobby, now lit, showed no one at their post, waiting for clients, returnees, an event.

The man and his paper were gone. His table had 2 pots of water, an empty espresso cup and saucer, a bright orange napkin, a knife, an empty water glass, a candle and a small plant in an alumninum pot on it. The green of the little plant seemed to lean out over the aluminum pot's edges towards the water pitchers and candle-flame. His table and two others were softly lit by the orange-yellow light of a bulb hung from a big tree nearby. The rest of the terrasse had been and still was in shadow, abandoned.

It was too cold tonight for a drink on the terrasse, but the old man alone with his newspaper had not seemed to mind. Soft music began to filter out of a speaker someplace. Old jazz. From the turn of another century. As I finished my dinner, a few other tables inside were still occupied, but only a few. The waitors and manager buzzed about busily, regardless...

I stroll back to my Hotel des Arceaux and take a pic from my balcony of the blue-lit arcades and the sleepy street. I seal myself in--closing the shutters--to sleep fitfully.

 

view from my window the next morning...

POEMS by Jennifer K Dick now online in Big Bridge 16

NEW POEMS online in Big Bridge 16: A poet-o-rama extravaganza issue!

Even as things are revving up for Lex-ICON in June and preparations, translations, orders are being made while finals are being doled out then graded and VERSAL 10 is about to launch in Amsterdam May 23rd (wait til you guys see that, it is STUNNINGLY gorgeous) I also have some new selections from the manuscript of the full-length version of ENCLOSURE now online at Big Bridge 16 in the special feature selected by Bonny Finberg and entitled "30 poets". I am at:  http://www.bigbridge.org/BB16/features/28poets/28jdick.htm 

[FYI gorgeous 1908 B&W pic. courtesy Life Google images, I found it in a great article on the contstruction of the Manhattan bridge--read it on the Bowery Boys NY City History site: click HERE to read]

A chapbook of the first section of that manuscript of mine ( entitled Enclosures--click to read) appeared a few years back with BlazeVox as a free PDF ebook. This manuscript has continued to develop and these are some of the final selections from that book (almost ready to submit into the world if any publishers want to save me the agony of that submission process and sollicit the darned thing--hint hint?) Anyway, the selection in Big Bridge 16 starts out:

   to touch lili

 

might be to see (be seen)  sudden
night-cooled overhang

                                streets

growing smaller

                                her body

dislocated by soundlessness

And continues for another 11 pages (go HERE to read more). 

I really am honored to be in this issue, which has a selection of general poetry then translations, features and a whopping 6 special sub-sections on poetry (including one on Neosurrealism--click HERE to see that one). The 30 Poets feature poetry section is dedicated to the memory of a poet I knew and loved for her work, her spirit and for every totally energized encounter I was lucky to have with her--AKILAH OLIVER (click here to hear her on PennSound). If you do not know her work, do go and get yourself copies of her books. 

The person who put together this Big Bridge poetry selection is Bonny Finberg, newly returned to NYC (and missed here in France). She opens the Big Bridge poetry section with a DEDICATION. Who are the 30 poets Bonny included in the section? They are listed here: (and links to their selections via clicking on their names):

Fanny R. Ferreira	Alice Notley
Amy Hollowell	Bob Holman
Bonny Finberg	Carol Wierzbicki
Chavisa Woods	Dorothy Friedman August
Dylan Harris	Jennifer K. Dick
Jill S. Rapaport	Jim Feast
Jim Harrison	John Yau
Jose Padua	Karen Margolis
Lisa Pasold	Louise Landes Levi
Lynn Crawford	Michelle Noteboom
Nina Karacosta	Patricia Spears Jones
Ron Kolm	Rufo Quintavalle
Thaddeus Rutkowski	Sparrow
Steve Dalachinsky	Tsaurah Litzky
Wanda Phipps	Yuko Otomo