From Concrete to Liquid to Spoken Worlds to the Word
This small-format catalogue for an exhibition on concrete poetry succeeds in freeing this art form from its familiar association with neo-modernism, bringing it into the present day with variety and levity. The book block with its black fabric band is glued in the style of a Swiss brochure into a cardboard cover whose large size and multiple folds make the volume sturdy and easy to handle. The list of contents on an inside cover makes navigation straightforward, and the start of each chapter can be easily identified thanks to folded sheets in a second type of paper. The result is that the use of many different visual languages – from typographical images to free-standing photographs of performances, exhibition views with display cases and internet screenshots – is not jarring. The overall impression is instead calm and inviting, and there are many elements of surprise. The inexpensive cover material underlines the everyday quality that characterises the art form itself. The smaller cut of the pages compared with the cardboard cover is elegant, and the cover design featuring two black-and-white illustrations gives a good preview of the different visual sign systems presented in the book.
