{"id":90,"date":"2020-10-30T20:10:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T20:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/?p=90"},"modified":"2022-04-08T19:50:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T19:50:57","slug":"sackner-archive-poets-as-dissidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/2020\/10\/30\/sackner-archive-poets-as-dissidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Sackner Archive: Poets as Dissidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Timothy Shipe
\nCurator, International Dada Archive
\nCo-Curator, Sackner Archive <\/em>exhibition<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Foreground: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159. <\/em>Evidentn\u00ed B\u00e1sn\u011b. Prague, 1966. Background: V\u00e1clav Havel. <\/em>Vernis\u00e1\u017e. Prague, 1975. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159 was a poet and visual artist best known for his work with collage techniques. (Coincidentally, his surname is pronounced \u201ccollage.\u201d) 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, Kol\u00e1\u0159 was forced into exile. Kol\u00e1\u0159\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Left: V\u00e1clav Havel. <\/em>Vernis\u00e1\u017e. Prague, 1975. Right: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159. <\/em>Evidentn\u00ed B\u00e1sn\u011b. Prague, 1966. Upper right: Ji\u0159\u00ed Kol\u00e1\u0159. <\/em>Improvisation Offset. Paris: Revue K, <\/em>1991. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete <\/em>and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As with Kol\u00e1\u0159, I first encountered V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s name in Emmett Williams\u2019s Anthology of Concrete Poetry. A generation younger than Kol\u00e1\u0159, 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 V\u00e1clav Havel Airport! Our exhibition includes examples of Havel\u2019s concrete poetry as well as a rare samizdat (illegally self-published) edition of one of his banned plays.<\/p>\n

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V\u00e1clav Havel. <\/em>Antik\u00f3dy. Prague: Odeon, 1993. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.                      Continue reading “Sackner Archive: Poets as Dissidents”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":98,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"syndication":[4,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}