In 1972, the Dutch visual poet Herman Damen published an outstanding critical text illustrating the daring and multifaceted expressions of neo-avant-garde experimental poetry as follows: ‘a living poesia visiva uses all available information and participation media, and could present itself as phono-, ideo-, typo-, icono-, photographical; mono-, stereo-, quadro-, ambiophonic; phonographic, bioscopic, kinetic; kinesic, eatable, odorous, tangible (Herman Damen, ‘Poesia Visiva: Mobilization of Sign & Symbol’, Studio Brescia, 1972) (Figure 1).
The plurality of adjectives adopted by Damen described an extremely eclectic and hybrid panorama of international visual poetics in the 1960s and 1970s, in which very distant approach, research and operations can be traced, ranging from the textual and phonetic performances of Gerhard Rühm, Adriano Spatola, and Patrizia Vicinelli, to the technological collage-poems of Lucia Marcucci, Lamberto Pignotti and Michele Perfetti, from the transgressive pornographic poetry of Hans Clavin and the logo-iconic combinations of Clemente Padin, Giusi Coppini and Jean-François Bory, to the photographic text-compositions of Ketty La Rocca and Luciano Ori, or to the works of a series of artists who have ‘subjected the book to a tension which dilates its concepts, techniques, and materials’ (Miccini, 1980) with regard to intermediality and intertexuality, such as Giuliano Della Casa’s Motopoem (1971), Gianni Bertini’s Oppure (1970), Dieter Roth’s Quadrat Print (1965).
In 1965 Paul De Vree described this cross-disciplinary dimension as a form of ‘integratie poëzie’ (De Tafelronde, no. X/I), while Dick Higgins (Dé-collage no. 6, 1967) and Adriano Spatola (Geiger no. 5, 1972) defined it as ‘intermedia’ (Figure 2).
The vast and controversial history of post-World War II visual poetics is rich and fragmented and is characterised by transnational exchanges and multiple geographies as well as different lineages and expressions. In fact, while sharing the ground-breaking principle whereby ‘the arts have entered into a fusion’ (De Vree, 1968), the wide and intercultural context of poetic concretism and visuality arises from diverse linguistic contexts, political environments and historical backgrounds such as the 1968 counterculture which marked a turning point in the change of aims and attitudes between Concrete and Visual poetry.
Influenced by Concrete art and structural linguistics, concretist poets worked on the embodied presence of words by creating spatial-typographic compositions to be fitted or stripped, whereas visual poets engaged with intersemiotic relationships and diverse techniques (cut-ups, fold-ins, ready-mades) by introducing political tensions in the poetic body through the collage of words and media fragments (e.g. newspapers articles, advertising images, photo novels, comic strips, printed ephemera).
In Italy, this critical shift in the concept and in the aesthetic of poetry took the name of poesia tecnologica (Gruppo 63, 1963-69) and poesia visiva, which, since their inception in the early 1960s (Gruppo 70, 1963-68) and their distinctive manifestations during the 1970s (Gruppo Internazionale di Poesia Visiva, also known as Gruppo dei Nove, 1972-79), performed strong interactions between photography, painting, typography and graphic design (Figure 3).
Incited and opened up in the multilingual networks of neo-avant-garde experimental poetry, from Europe to Brazil, from North America to Japan, the specificity of Italian and Belgian relational axis is located in the wider context of cross-references and shared experiences that deeply informed the international and intermediate phenomenon of poesia visiva. The long-lasting exchanges between the two countries resulted in the production of seminal collective poetry collections (Il Libro 1968-1971, 1971), ἔξω-editorial projects (De Tafelronde, 1953-81; Lotta Poetica, first series: 1971-75) and mixed-media works (including picture-poems, alphabetical writings, verbovisual objects and typewriter compositions) that have revolutionized accepted notions of linguistic production by creating a critical path that led to the ‘visual turn in poetry’ (Vos, 1987) as well as to the ‘linguistic turn in visual arts’ (Rorthy, 1967). Founded in 1971 by Sarenco and Paul De Vree, the literary magazine Lotta Poetica (poetic struggle) is the aim of Italian and Belgian co-authored artists’ publications, interartistic exchanges and international poesia visiva movement (Figure 4).
The official organon of a militant protest and in radical contrast to the logic of advanced capitalism, Lotta Poetica investigates the impact of new media, political imagery and technologies on poetry by establishing itself at the core of social activism and neo-avant-garde verbicovisual investigations. Combining insights across verbal and figurative arts, media poetics and literary semiotics, this pivotal co-authored artists’ publication triggers a cultural integration of knowledge and creates a unique model of interdisciplinary cooperation where historic avant-garde legacies and futurable dimensions of visual poetics strongly converged.
Envisioned by the German philosopher Siegfried J. Schmidt as one of the major ‘perspectives on the development of post-concrete poetry’ (1982), this significant moment in 20th century visual poetics has in fact created artistic experiences, languages and styles that we are still experiencing today, and is now forcefully taking centre stage again. Counter Weight (E. Beaulieu, 2018), Finding Chopin (T. Vonna-Michell, 2005-18), Subtraction (Splitting) (T. Auerbach, 2007) and No. 111.2.7.93-10.20.96 (K. Goldsmith, 1997) are just a few significant examples of contemporary artists and poets working at the intersection of visual art and literature, producing some of the most compelling work in either medium.
*This topic is at the core of an ongoing postdoctoral research project entitled Concrete & Visual Poetry: Artists’ Publications and/as Connections with Italy and Belgium in the 60s and 70s carried out at the University of Liège and KU Leuven. It will be further explored in the international symposium ‘Engaged Visuality: The Italian and Belgian Poesia Visiva Phenomenon in the 60s and 70s’ which will be organised in collaboration with Jan De Vree (M HKA Museum, Antwerp) and hosted by the Academia Belgica of Rome in December 2021.
Figure 1) Herman Damen. Mixing the concretes, in Herman Damen Poesia Visiva. Exhibition catalogue no. 5. Brescia: Studio Brescia, 1972. Courtesy Collection M HKA, Antwerp.
Figure 2) Paul De Vree (ed.). De Tafelronde, no. X/I (Integratie Konkrete Poëzie). Antwerp, 1965. Courtesy Collection M HKA, Antwerp. Courtesy Collection M HKA, Antwerp.
Figure 3) Lucia Marcucci. Anonima, 1967, collage on cardboard, 51.5 x 36 cm. Courtesy Fondazione Berardelli, Brescia.
Figure 4) Paul De Vree. Amsterdam, 1969. Excerpt from Lotta Poetica no. 2. Milanino sul Garda: Amodulo Edizioni. July 1971 p. 19. Courtesy Collection M HKA, Antwerp.
