Breaking Lines, Estorick Collection, exhibition review: ‘Blurring literature and painting’
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Stack Net…N. p. Wild Hawthorn Press, 1968. Chelsea College of Arts Library, University of the Arts London
The Italian Futurist movement is best known for paintings by the likes of Gino Severini and Umberto Boccioni, but it was led by poet Filippo Tomasso Marinetti, and integral to the movement was experimentation with the written word in plastic form.
Similar developments in concrete poetry took place in the UK and elsewhere in the mid-20th century, marking this period out as one of enterprise and the blurring of genres between literature and painting.
The Estorick Collection in Canonbury has now brought together examples of the genre in Breaking Lines, a pair of exhibitions that highlight different aspects of experimental poetry.
Futurism and the Origins of Experimental Poetry traces the poetic element of Futurism, focusing on Marinetti, as well as poet-artists such as Fortunato Depero, Carol Belloli and Luciano Caruso.
Carlo Carrà, Atmospheric Swirls – A Bursting Shell, 1914. Image: Estorick Collection, London
Don Sylvester Houédard and Concrete Poetry in Post-war Britain explores the work of a poet with similar interests in the graphic potential of typography.
A Benedictine monk from Guernsey, Houédard blended poetry and wall-hung art with his figurative works composed of type-written letters and symbols.
The poet’s influence on other literary figures is traced in this exhibition in works by John Furnival, Bob Cobbing, Ian Hamilton Finlay and others.
Displaying the two groups of artists side by side reminds us engagingly of the commonalities that run through apparently distant cultural movements and across artistic media.
Breaking Lines runs until 11 May at Estorick Collection, 39a Canonbury Square, N1 2AN.