The first issue of 'Art in America,' which appeared in 1913, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's 'Exilée and Temps Morts: Selected Works.'
I am going to discuss three examples of Conceptual writing. My purpose in doing so is merely to define one of a larger set of questions. Defining questions is going to be more productive than pretending to have answers. I don’t want to even seem to be making an argument about these examples; that would truly be shortchanging the artists’ efforts. The brevity of this essay requires that I forego the summation and close reading, the kind of exposition we use to support a fully fledged thesis.
Clairvoyant Journal 1974 is the first edition of the Clairvoyant Journal that follows the page design and format of Weiner's manuscript. For the first time, Weiner's spatial organization is kept intact. (In this work of "concrete prose," line breaks are retained).
Clairvoyant Journal 1974 is based on the typescripts Early and Clairvoyant Journalsand includes the entries dated February 23 to June 10.
Patrick Durgin provides an overview of the edition here.
In 1970, Hannah Weiner exhibited a telegram in Oberlin College’s conceptual art survey Art in the Mind. After the “mail strike,” her letter to Virginian Dwan was delivered to the gallerist (page one and page two). In it Weiner complains that Vito Acconci’s telegram-piece should be exhibited in Language IV along with Walter DeMaria’s telegram, arguing that the medium was immaterial, and that the artwork, in either case, consists in its sphere of reference. So that there could be no redundancy involved. She cites her piece at Oberlin.
But she might have also claimed more significance for the telegram. A primitive speech-to-text technology, it is a phonic ticker, defamiliarizing the otherwise imperceptible but crucial transfiguration that takes place between sound-image and thought.
Hannah Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal is the last in a series of autobiographical texts. The Fast, Country Girl, Pictures and Early Words, and BIG WORDS precede it. This series begins with her first written account of visionary experiences that would develop over the 1970s, years during which Weiner invented a unique literary form to portray them. The series culminates in this invention.
On February 8, 2003, performing at the Bowery Poetry Club without prepared text or notes, Steve Bensonimprovised a long poem composed entirely of questions. His transcript of this performance later appeared in the book Open Clothes (Atelos, 2005) as “Did the lights just go out” [text]. Later, Steve McLaughlin created two excerpts from the full audio recording:
LISTEN TO THE SHOW I met up with Patrick Durgin at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he teaches literature, writing, and critical theory. Patrick has published books and journals under the Kenning Editions imprint since 1998, during which time he’s lived in a number of poetry-rich locales: Iowa City, the Bay Area, Buffalo, Ypsilanti, and now the Windy City.
New Edition of Hannah Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal
Clairvoyant Journal 1974
is the first edition of the Clairvoyant Journal that follows the page design and format of Weiner's manuscript. For the first time, Weiner's spatial organization is kept intact. (In this work of "concrete prose," line breaks are retained).
Clairvoyant Journal 1974 is based on the typescripts Early and Clairvoyant Journals and includes the entries dated February 23 to June 10.
Patrick Durgin provides an overview of the edition here.