can you check this link. I'd love to see but it isn't working.
Andrea Baker
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Reply-To: "Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics, r" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 09:19:10 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Henri Michaux
>
> Unfortunately this exhibit (The Drawing Center, Soho NYC) will be closing
> after 12/20, but the catalogue may be of interest to members of this list:
>
> Untitled Passages by Henri Michaux
> Catherine de Zegher (ed.)
>
> http://www.info-france-usa.org/culture/art/events/michaux-drawing.html
>
> "Untitled Passages" by Henri Michaux is the first New York museum exhibition
> of works by the poet and artist since a retrospective at the Guggenheim
> Museum in 1978. Curated by The Drawing Centers director Catherine de Zegher
> and Geneva and Paris-based independent curator Florian Rodari, the
> exhibition takes its title from Michauxs extensive body of untitled
> drawings and from Passages, his book of poetic writings. Through an
> investigation of Michauxs graphic works in tandem with his poetic practice,
> the exhibition will address his research into the passages between "writing"
> and "drawing."
>
> The celebrated poet and writer Henri Michaux (1899-1984), who was born in
> Namur, Belgium, made drawing a highly significant component of his work. The
> prolific nature of his practice as a draftsman, which included experiments
> with a wide range of styles and materials, indicates that drawing did not
> merely accompany his words, it formed a symbiotic partnership with them.
> Michaux merged his writing into his drawing and his drawing into his
> writing, pushing the boundaries of each form of expression. As the
> artist/writer felt the limitations of language, he turned to drawing to
> undermine the established linguistic order, which he transformed into
> "non-sense." Always in flux, his ink drawings explode linguistic systems and
> allow for the appearance of the indescribable. In contradistinction to the
> Surrealists, who attempted to disregard the linguistic system through
> experiments with automatic writing, Michaux accepted the system of language
> yet eroded it from within by blurring the distinctions between writing and
> drawing.
>
> Despising all that was static and blindly accepted, the artist devised
> numerous strategies in his early years to counter inaction, both in his
> personal life and in his writings. He traveled worldwide (including Asia and
> South America) and, in 1922, left Belgium for Paris, which became his
> permanent city of residence. Beginning in the 1920s, Michaux took up
> drawing, and it was through this activity that he sought to delve into the
> wellspring of the unknown and the spontaneous. Whether thrown onto paper or
> flung from the pen, Michauxs use of ink, followed later by watercolor, was
> fluid, direct, and shapeless; these qualities allowed the artist to gain
> access to his emotions and give fuller expression to their remarkable
> subconscious power.
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