Civitella XXV #6: Paper & Poetry at Dieu Donné
Civitella XXV #6: Paper & Poetry at Dieu Donné
May 5 – June 3, 2019
reception: Sunday, May 19, 2019, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
This exhibition and reception was initialized to honor former Poet Laureate and papermaker, Mark Strand (a Director’s Guest and loyal friend to Civitella Ranieri). This pop-up exhibition, curated by Dieu Donné founder, Susan Gosin, features a number of visual artists who have been involved with both Civitella and Dieu Donné, such as Jon Kessler, Saya Woolfalk, and Daniel Zeller. Gosin will present a new artist book of Strand's poems and drawings as part of the exhibition. The reception will include readings by several of Strand’s poet friends, including Timothy Donnelly, Vijay Seshadri, and Thomas Sleigh as well as a papermaking demonstration.
When asked by The New Yorker what drew him to papermaking, Strand responded: “Well, making paper is fun. Mixing pigment with pulp and adding the blend to the pulp that will eventually become a sheet of paper is wonderfully absorbing.” He went on to say that he used it as “an escape from making meaning. I got tired of writing poems, of trying to make sense—verbal sense. It is a relief to make a different kind of sense—visual sense. One must think, of course, but it is an entirely different kind of thinking, one in which language does not intrude.”
IMAGE: Jon Kessler, Girl #1 (detail), 2008, Pigmented paper pulp, magazines, pressed flowers, yarn on handmade paper 40 x 30 inches.
