Image from the Sackner Archive exhibition virtual tour, Main Library Gallery.
For those who did not get a chance to visit the Sackner Archive exhibition in the Main Library Gallery during the Fall 2020 semester, you’re in luck! The virtual tour of the exhibit is now ready to view.
The tour features 360° photos of the Main Library Gallery, which allow the viewer to move from area to area. The text panels and the cases containing the objects on display are clickable, meaning close-up views of the items are available along with narrative from the curators. Blog articles and videos relating to the works in the exhibit are also included, such as curator commentary and short recordings of a few of the pieces in motion. A clickable exhibition guide is located near the gallery’s virtual front doors, and also on the Main Library Gallery website.
An immersive reader option is readily available in each section of the virtual exhibit to read the detailed image descriptions for each piece on display. Videos with sound include closed captions.
In this short video, Margaret Gamm, Head of Special Collections and co-curator of the Sackner Archive exhibition in the Main Library Gallery, gives insight about the correspondence between Marvin and Ruth Sackner and the artists whose work they admired, commissioned, and joyfully collected. The personal correspondence archive within the Sackner Archive is something of a roadmap to how their “home sweet museum” came to be.
Items featured in this video appeared in the Fall 2020 Main Library Gallery exhibition. Objects on display in Sackner Archive were from the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, The University of Iowa Libraries.
The Sackner Archive exhibition was curated by Timothy Shipe, Peter Balestrieri, and Margaret Gamm.
Additional information about this past exhibition and the Main Library Gallery, including additional videos, curator highlights, guide, and much more can be found here: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/gallery/
In this short video, Peter Balestrieri, curator of popular culture and science fiction in Special Collections and co-curator of the Sackner Archive exhibition in the Main Library Gallery, shares his take on work by German poet artist Hanne Darboven (1941 – 2009).
Portrait of Hanne Darboven, 1968. Copyright: Angelika Platen. Source: StudioInternational.
The featured work from 1973, Kunst und Pangeometrie, appears in the Fall 2020 Main Library Gallery exhibition.
Objects on display in Sackner Archive are from The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, The University of Iowa Libraries.
The Sackner Archive exhibition was curated by Timothy Shipe, Peter Balestrieri, and Margaret Gamm.
By Timothy Shipe
Curator, International Dada Archive
Co-Curator, Sackner Archive exhibition
Mary Ellen Solt is the only poet in the Sackner Archive exhibition who is also part of the UI Libraries’ Iowa Authors Collection. Born in 1920 in Gilmore City, Iowa, Mary Ellen Bottom graduated from Iowa State Teachers College (now UNI) in 1941. She married Leo F. Solt in 1945 and received her M.A. in English Literature from the University of Iowa in 1948. In 1955 the couple took up teaching positions at Indiana University: Leo in History, Mary Ellen in Comparative Literature.
Mary Ellen Solt. A Trilogy of Rain. Urbana: Finial Press, 1970. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
In the 1960s Mary Ellen Solt began writing concrete poetry, and came into contact with most of the early figures in the worldwide movement. She is best known for her series of flower poems, which have frequently been included in anthologies, and for Concrete Poetry: A World View, which she edited with Willa Barnstone, and which (with Emmett Williams’s Anthology of Concrete Poetry) is considered one of the two defining anthologies of the movement.
Mary Ellen Solt. Concrete Poetry: A World View. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
During the era of the Vietnam War, Solt created a series of anti-war graphics that drew on the principles of concrete poetry. She was also known for her scholarly study of William Carlos Williams.
Mary Ellen Solt. Vietnam. Circa 1970s. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.Mary Ellen Solt. Change. Circa 1970s. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
After spending a year teaching at the University of Warsaw, she became director of Indiana’s Polish Studies Center. Solt died in 2007.
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Sackner Archive will be on display in the Main Library Gallery through mid-December 2020. The Main Library Gallery is available to visit by appointment. To learn more about the exhibition and see online resources, including videos and a small virtual exhibit, please visit the Main Library Gallery page for Sackner Archive.
By Timothy Shipe
Curator, International Dada Archive
Co-Curator, Sackner Archive exhibition
In former Czechoslovakia, concrete poets were at the heart of dissident movements seeking to reform or overthrow the Communist regime. Two of these poets are included in the Czech section of our exhibition.
Foreground: Jiří Kolář. Evidentní Básně. Prague, 1966. Background: Václav Havel. Vernisáž. Prague, 1975. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
Jiří Kolář was a poet and visual artist best known for his work with collage techniques. (Coincidentally, his surname is pronounced “collage.”) After joining the Communists at the end of World War II, he soon left the Party, and his work was frequently banned. While he became more publicly active during the Prague Spring, his work was again prohibited following the 1968 Soviet invasion. After signing Charter 77, a manifesto calling upon the Communist government to guarantee basic human rights, Kolář was forced into exile. Kolář’s collages frequently incorporate written or printed text. Like many of the artists featured in our exhibition, it may be difficult to draw a line between his literary and his artistic work.
Left: Václav Havel. Vernisáž. Prague, 1975. Right: Jiří Kolář. Evidentní Básně. Prague, 1966. Upper right: Jiří Kolář. Improvisation Offset. Paris: Revue K, 1991. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
As with Kolář, I first encountered Václav Havel’s name in Emmett Williams’s Anthology of Concrete Poetry. A generation younger than Kolář, Havel became a leading dissident playwright whose works were also banned. He was a signer of Charter 77 and was frequently imprisoned. As founder of the Civic Forum Party that spearheaded the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Havel became the first (and only) president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, and later, of the independent Czech Republic. Now if you fly to Prague, you will arrive at Václav Havel Airport! Our exhibition includes examples of Havel’s concrete poetry as well as a rare samizdat (illegally self-published) edition of one of his banned plays.
Václav Havel. Antikódy. Prague: Odeon, 1993. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.
Timothy Shipe, curator of the International Dada Archive and co-curator of the Sackner Archive exhibition in the Main Library Gallery, has some stories to share about poet artist Kurt Schwitters and his Merz publications in this new video.
Merz no. 2 appears in the Fall 2020 Main Library Gallery exhibition.
Objects on display in Sackner Archive are from the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, The University of Iowa Libraries.
The Sackner Archive exhibition was curated by Timothy Shipe, Peter Balestrieri, and Margaret Gamm and will be on display through December 11, 2020.
To learn a bit more about Kurt Schwitters and about Merz as an art style, check out these websites:
The Art Story – Kurt Schwitters and his work
Tate Modern, London – Merz and Dada as art terms
Smithsonian Magazine – A Brief History of Dada
Learn more about the International Dada Archive here: dada.lib.uiowa.edu
More information about this exhibition, the Main Library Gallery, and how to schedule a visit: lib.uiowa.edu/gallery
On display in the Main Library Gallery: Guillermo de Torre. Hélices. Madrid: Mundo Latino, 1923 (foreground). John Furnival. The Fall of the Tower of Babel. 1995 (background). Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, The University of Iowa Libraries.
The Main Library Gallery at the University of Iowa Libraries recently opened Sackner Archive, an exhibition featuring select pieces from the world-renowned Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry.
Founded by Ruth and Marvin Sackner in 1979 in Miami Beach, Florida, the Archive has always combined the couple’s great appreciation for art and words with their love of collecting unique works. Comprised of more than 75,000 pieces, the Sackner Archive holds the largest collection of concrete and visual poetry in the world. Many of the most significant poet-artists from the past hundred years are celebrated through the collection. After decades curating, cataloging, and caring for the rare and remarkable objects in the Archive with Ruth, Marvin Sackner sought a permanent home for their collection.
In 2019, the University of Iowa Libraries was pleased to announce that Special Collections had been chosen to care for the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. This ensures that Ruth and Marvin Sackner’s impressive collection will be available for students, faculty and staff, and the public – both local and worldwide – to research and enjoy for years to come.
From artists’ books to reference works to large-scale pieces of visual poetry, the Sackner Archive offers so many wonderful resources for everyone. While items from the Sackner Archive are available to view in the Special Collections Reading Room now and into the future, a few highlights from the collection are currently on display as part of theMain Library Gallery’s Fall 2020 exhibition. Sackner Archive is on display through December 11, 2020.
The exhibition has been curated by a team from Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries: Timothy Shipe, Curator, International Dada Archive; Peter Balestrieri, Curator, Science Fiction & Popular Culture; and Margaret Gamm, Head, Special Collections & University Archives. Support for Sackner Archive has been provided by Friends of the University of Iowa Libraries.
On display in the Main Library Gallery: Jiří Kolář. Improvisation Offset. Paris: Revue K, 1991. Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry, Special Collections, The University of Iowa Libraries.
Important Note: Visits to the Main Library Gallery are by appointment onlyat this time due to COVID-19. Guests are encouraged to visit the Main Library Gallery website for additional information about the exhibition and about planning a visit. The Main Library Gallery is open to the public, and admission is free. (Appointments are available Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 4:00pm, and must be booked in advance. All are welcome, including classes, individuals, and small groups.)
Find more information about Sackner Archive in the Main Library Gallery via the Gallery’s website and by exploring the LibGuide created for this exhibition, which includes many helpful resources.
To make an appointment to visit the Main Library Gallery, please contact Sara Pinkham.
From The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities in the Main Library Gallery. Photo by Barry Phipps.
While The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities, curated by Dr. Kim Marra and Mark Anderson, is no longer on display in the Main Library Gallery, a virtual celebration of the Spring 2020 exhibition is available online!
Learn more about the exhibit here, and find a link to explore the online content and photos of the exhibit while it was in the Main Library Gallery. The original documentary upon which the exhibition was based is also available to view for free.
Article by Mark Anderson, Digital Scholarship & Collections Librarian, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio.
In 2016, University of Iowa Professor Kim Marra answered a call that the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio made to University of Iowa faculty to “Get Digital with Your Scholarship”. Kim arrived at the Studio with a portfolio of horse-themed illustrations and an idea for a project to develop an immersive, multimedia, scholarly experience.
The current exhibit and video on display at the UI Main Library Gallery is a product of that idea. Unlike her books on other topics and the numerous articles Kim has written on the subject of people’s relationship with horses, the exhibit combines a rich variety of photographs, documents, sound, video, and equipment to tell the story of horses’ significant impact on the development of two locations: New York City and Iowa City.
The image that started us down the collaboration path. Art Supplement to Appleton’s Journal – The Grand Drive at Central Park. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1869. From the private collection of Dr. Kim Marra.
The Studio’s mission to collaborate with faculty and students on the digital design, implementation, and circulation of their research is a perfect match with Kim’s vision for the Pull of Horses project. A number of Studio staff assisted in project elements such as video editing, digital mapping, and supporting the student sound designer, Wade Hampton, who quickly became an essential partner in the group.
Collaborations of this nature rely on areas outside the boundaries of the Studio. The UI Libraries’ Preservation Department was a huge help in digitizing the early 1900s magazine illustrations that became a major part of the video, (forcing me to learn the procedure for using the “Ken Burns” effect in Adobe Premiere – the editing software used to make the video). Additionally, it is hard to overstate just how fortunate we were to have Professor of Piano Dr. Alan Huckleberry from the School of Music, and his enthusiastic participation. He offered to record several pieces of horse -themed piano music for the video, for which there are no other recordings available. An excerpt of Dr. Huckleberry’s piano performance of “Meadowbrook Foxtrot” is available here.
One of the memories that will stay with me of preparing for the exhibit was that, on an unusually hot day in early fall (very unlike the temperature at the exhibit opening), Kim and I, and Mary Bennett and Hang Nguyen from the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City were inside with the air conditioning and box after archival box, selecting and pulling photographs. We could not have pulled off the exhibit without their assistance and mastery of the collection.
Likewise, without the effort and skill of Bill Voss and Giselle Simón from the UI Libraries Conservation Department; Chris Clark and Will Brown from Library Information Technology; and the dedication, guidance, and hard work of Exhibition Coordinator Sara Pinkham and Exhibit Designer Kalmia Strong, there would be no exhibit. There are even more who lent their time and talents, and I hope they are just as proud of the Pull of Horses exhibit as I am.
The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities will be on display in the Main Library Gallery through March 29, 2020. Visit lib.uiowa.edu/gallery for hours, events, and additional details about the exhibition.
Mark Anderson, Dr. Kim Marra, Mary Bennett, and Hang Nguyen at the opening event for the exhibition in January 2020 at the Main Library Gallery.
Along with our ancestors, horses helped build Iowa City, the state, and the nation. In the process, they profoundly shaped human identities. The current Main Library Gallery exhibition, The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities, explores the physical and social impact of these huge, powerful animals by screening on a loop the original documentary film The Pull of Horses in Urban American Performance, 1860-1920 at life-sized scale amid displays of local and national equine history. The exhibition contains glimpses of Iowa City town and campus life, as well as national equestrian culture – especially as multitudes of women took up the sport of riding and advocated for suffrage.
Original and reproduction publications, photographs, artifacts, and ephemera from Special Collections, the University Archives, and the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries; the State Historical Society of Iowa; and from private collections share a sampling of stories about life alongside horses from Iowa City’s, and the nation’s, past. The exhibition was curated by Kim Marra, PhD of the University of Iowa Departments of Theatre Arts and American Studies, and Mark Anderson of the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio at the University of Iowa Libraries.
In celebration of this Main Library Gallery exhibit, the University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to answer this intriguing question for the curious person wandering around downtown Iowa City:
Where were downtown Iowa City’s horse-related businesses?
Blacksmith and wood work, Iowa City, Iowa. Southeast corner of Washington Street and Capitol Street. Current site of Old Capitol Town Center. Circa 1890-1900. Frederick W. Kent Collection of Photographs, 1866-2000. University of Iowa Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives. Accessible via UI Libraries’ Iowa Digital Library.
It is important to first understand the demand for these businesses. By 1900, according to the Decennial U.S. Census, the state of Iowa was home to 2,231,853 humans and 1,268,000 equines. In Johnson County, out of 24,753 humans, 9,773 were classified as urban, with most of those humans—7,987—concentrated in Iowa City. Equines numbered 18,493 in the Johnson County, with 1,602 living in urban areas. Given the high concentration of urban human population in Iowa City, most of those 1,602 equines were likely living here as well—around 1,000 would be a fair estimate.
To find out which buildings contained horse-related businesses, the curators turned to Sanborn maps and local business directories. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps provide helpful insight when researching the history of an area. The Sanborn Map Company published detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns, which allowed fire insurance companies to assess the fire risk of each building. Overall, these maps show the locations and types of businesses by year, along with structural information.
There are 186 stables depicted in downtown Iowa City alone in 1899, according to the entirety of that year’s Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. Many of those stables are shown connected to businesses, while others are connected to private homes. Stables are prominently marked with an “X” across the footprint of each building. Most accommodated multiple equines, and the largest, Foster, Thompson, and Shuck Livery (later Foster, Graham, and Schaffer Livery), at 217-221 East Washington Street (current site of The Englert), would have accommodated several dozen. The quantity and placement of all these Iowa City stables give a sense of the extent to which horses were embedded in human life. Other key businesses needed to support working equines are also visible on the map, notably blacksmith shops, harness and saddlery shops, carriage and wagonmakers, feed stores, and veterinary surgeons.
The Main Library Gallery exhibition includes reproductions of the original 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Iowa City in their entirety, and calls out specific locations that correspond with images found in the archives at the University of Iowa Libraries and the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City.
For those ready to tour downtown Iowa City looking for these historically horsey buildings (or former building sites in many cases), the particular map sections emphasized in this blog post are from the 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Iowa City. Horse-related businesses are highlighted by virtue of their addresses listed in the 1899 Iowa City business directory. Some locations are approximate due to the changing landscape of downtown Iowa City over the years, but all featured establishments include the names of businesses housed there in 1899 and at the time of this post in 2020.
The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities will be on display in the Main Library Gallery through March 29, 2020.
Text describing the maps below is available by request.
Clipping from Sheet 6, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.
Clipping from Sheet 12, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.
Clipping from Sheet 11, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.
Clipping from Sheet 11, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.Clipping from Sheet 13, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.Clipping from Sheet 14, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.Clipping from Sheet 14, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.Clipping from Sheet 14, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa. Published June 1899, Sanborn Map Company. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. Originals available in the University of Iowa Libraries Maps Collection.
Text: Sara J. Pinkham and Dr. Kim Marra Clippings and cross-referencing: Sara J. Pinkham
Exhibition Support: Friends of the UI Libraries, Arts and Humanities Initiative, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, UI Theatre Arts Department, UI Department of American Studies
