Exhibition
89plus and the LUMA Foundation are pleased to announce the inaugural 89plus exhibition “Poetry will be made by all!” opening on 30 January 2014 at the LUMA/Westbau exhibition space within Löwenbräukunst in Zurich, Switzerland. The exhibition is co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Simon Castets and Kenneth Goldsmith, with Danny Snelson as exhibition advisor and program coordinator. Additionally, the exhibition features a film selection curated by Kevin McGarry. “Poetry will be made by all!” is partnered in association with UbuWeb (ubu.com), the world’s leading collection of avant-garde material online.
Expanding on the emergent poetics of online distribution systems and the prominence of poetry in 89plus projects to date, the exhibition will bring together works from renowned and upcoming international poets and writers within displays created by their peers working in design, visual arts and architecture. Inspired by the seminal exhibition “Transform the world! Poetry must be made by all!” curated by Ronald Hunt at the invitation of Pontus Hulten for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1969, the inaugural 89plus exhibition will highlight how the written word, far from being diminished, finds a renewed importance within today’s digital information networks.
Installation
The exhibition features an installation for multimodal media and social engagement designed by acclaimed Japanese architectural firm Atelier Bow Wow. The installation features a manga pod for reading new books of poetry, active workspaces for the creation of spontaneous works of poetry, a book forest hosting a variety of poetic titles, a moving track of curtains for projections, and a proscenium stage for conversation, readings and viewings.
In a spirit of collaboration, the exhibition also features graphic design by Content is Relative, design by Josh Bitelli, and architectural concrete poems by Augusto de Campos, Eugen Gomringer, Karl Holmqvist, Christian Holstad, and Amalia Ulman.
Opening
The opening days of the exhibition will feature readings and performances by numerous poets, artists and writers. Emerging poets Harry Burke, Andrew Durbin, Mashinka Firunts, Rui An Ho, Sophia Le Fraga, Sang-Woo Lee, Trisha Low, Sarah Ortmeyer, Steve Roggenbuck and Dena Yago will perform alongside established mentors, including Etel Adnan, Caroline Bergvall, Stefano Boeri, Christian Bök, Anton Bruhin, Karl Holmqvist, Tao Lin, Tracie Morris, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Eugenie Paultre, Robert Whitman and many others. Archival works by Robert Barry and Augusto de Campos will be performed and displayed as part of the exhibition opening. These events will be held in conjunction with a celebration of concrete poet Eugen Gomringer’s remarkably aligned 89th birthday. Gomringer will perform on 30 January and inspires a wealth of poetic works generated throughout the exhibition.
Poets-in-residence
Over the course of two months, poets-in-residence will offer readings, conduct discussions, and produce an expansive library of new works of poetry and innovative writing. These activities bring poets into productive dialogue with visitors to the exhibition as well as a robust network of young poets worldwide, culminating in a library of one thousand books edited, designed and coordinated at LUMA/Westbau and printed on demand by Lulu.com. Through these publications, “Poetry will be made by all!” showcases the breadth and depth of the poetry in real time—locally produced in Zürich and circulating among emergent writers from around the globe.
