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Main Library Gallery news

Month: October 2020

Oct 30 2020

Sackner Archive: Poets as Dissidents

Posted on October 30, 2020April 8, 2022 by Sara J. Pinkham

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.

Two books are open in a gallery case. The most prominent features shapes made with typed letters and numbers.
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.

Two books are open inside a gallery case. One is signed by Vaclav Havel.
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.
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Oct 23 2020

Sackner Archive: Merz, Schwitters, Art

Posted on October 23, 2020April 8, 2022 by Sara J. Pinkham

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

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