Month: February 2011

Osa / Merzen

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Based on reflection of the work of artist Kurt Schwitters, osa is developing an accessible and tangible installation in the space of CUBE gallery in Manchester.

osa’s installation refers to Schwitters’ own collage technique which he called “Merz”, a method of rearranging collected objects such as papers, timber, wire, text snippets and paint.

The installation will transform the gallery space by using materials collected and provided by the city of Manchester, with the aim to blur the border between existing space and installation i.e. frame and content.

As with city development itself, the idea deals with the transformation process of the materials through the application within the installation as well as (the transformation) of the whole (overall system) as a reaction of addition and overwriting. This leads to a deliberate context displacement.

The installation will grow in three stages (17-19 February, 26-28 February, 25-28 March) and visitors are encouraged to become part of the development process by bringing their own collected materials of the built environment into the gallery.

Parts of the gallery space will be turned into a material store which not only acts as a collection point for the different ingredients of the installation, but also links back to the former function of the building (warehouse).

As within the contemporary pluralistic city (CPC), existing relationships will be shifted through continuous surprising and unexpected interrelations of the single elements as well as and new ones will be uncovered; without a descriptive manual.

“Merz is sensing without knowing”, Kurt Schwitters, 1920.

For more information and press images, please contact: info@cube.org.uk, 0161 237 5525.

Two new books by Robert Sheppard

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Two new books by Robert Sheppard from Shearsman

BERLIN BURSTS (poems)

These new poems feature territories as dispersed as Sheppard’s local Capital of Culture and the global city of division and political murder of the title poem. Yet a series of metapoems brings agency and wonder to the idea of the poem, always seeing the world as well as itself, in perceptual double-takes that tease away at the meaning of the poetic act
At the centre of the collection is ‘Six Poems Against Death’ whose lyric imperative hovers before the portals of the unknown to embrace human unfinish as the condition of our survival.

Ian Davidson in Poetry Wales called Sheppard’s Complete Twentieth Century Blues ‘a major poem of serious intent’; Alan Baker in Litter called Warrant Error ‘political poetry of the first order’, and John Muckle wrote of ‘this brilliant, disquieting book.’

“Robert Sheppard . . . composed a few words around Liverpool’s status as City of Culture. ‘Their shit’s verdure but that’s OK/ This isn’t a nature poem.’ Sheppard’s near twenty-year epic, Complete Twentieth Century Blues, outweighed the Ringo returns, the showbiz art: he cooked slow and long, with tangy sauces and bits that break the teeth. The city
averted its eyes . . . As if it were the poet’s fault that we want our meat pre-chewed.” -Iain Sinclair

Order from the Shearsman online store and read more at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardBB.html

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WHEN BAD TIMES MADE FOR GOOD POETRY (criticism)

This study presents an episodic history of an epic period in British poetry, when bad times forced political subversion and textual impaction upon its central figures and provisional institutions. Episodes cover the Poetry Wars of the 1970s; the centrality of Bob Cobbing as poetry activist and the SubVoicive poetry scene in 1980s London; he also writes individual chapters on the poetry and poetics of Allen Fisher, Tom Raworth, Iain Sinclair, John Hall, Ken Edwards, and Maggie O’Sullivan.

“A landmark study.” -Benjamin Keatinge reviewing The Poetry of Saying in The European English Messenger

Order from the Shearsman online store and read more at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardWBT.html
Order from amazon.co.uk
Order from The Book Depository