Look and look again
Guest Editor Judy Kleinberg
As Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry (Amanda Earl, Ed., Timglaset Editions, 2021) has amply demonstrated, women worldwide are setting aside the rulebook and producing an astonishing breadth and depth of rich and challenging work. From the book’s list of 1811 women making visual poetry, just two dozen or so could be shown within its pages. Clearly, there is much more to be done – and seen.
Visual poetry is not static; its forms and definition evolve. It embraces history, craft, and technology. It refers, in varying degrees, to traditional forms such as painting, collage, sculpture, literature, music, and textiles. At the same time, it calls upon the future, asks questions, and opens, if we may, new doors of perception. It is encyclopedic and improvisational as jazz.
Through our willingness to look and look again, to release preconceptions, we encourage the evolution of the form.
I am grateful to Synapse co-editors karl kempton and Philip Davenport for the opportunity to continue the dialogue by considering a small selection of additional artists and additional work. I am also grateful to the artists, Kristine Snodgrass, Lucinda Sherlock, India Johnson, Claire Durand-Gasselin, and ReVerse Butcher, who responded with alacrity and generosity to my queries. Their work is presented here with the artists’ own brief introductions.
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