The most beautiful anthology I've been a part of, my poem is rendered wonderfully in this major achievement, summing up the best of 21st century concrete poetry. You can buy the book here http://shop.southbankcentre.co.uk/the-new-concrete-visual-poetry-in-the-21st-century.html & it'll be launched here http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/new-concrete/
The New Concrete anthology: launch at the Whitechapel Gallery - July 25th
This is the most significant anthology of concrete poetry of my generation. I'm delighted to be included, and alongside many friends / peers - Antonio Claudio Carvalho, Marco Giovenale, Tom Jenks, Sarah Kelly, John Kinsella, Anatol Knotek, Márton Koppány, nick-e melville, and Jörg Piringer & legends like Vito Acconci, Augusto de Campos, Henri Chopin, Bob Cobbing, Ian Hamilton Finlay https://thenewconcrete.wordpress.com/about
"The New Concrete is a major new anthology of visual poetry edited by Victoria Bean and Chris McCabe and published by Hayward Publishing (July 2015). The book represents visual poetry published from 2000 to the present day and suggests ways in which the original concrete movement of the 1950s and ’60s has been built upon, developed and redefined by subsequent generations of poets and artists." You can buy it here http://shop.southbankcentre.co.uk/the-new-concrete-visual-poetry-in-the-21st-century.html
The anthology will be launched in a full whack 5 hours programme at the whitechapel gallery on July 25th http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/new-concrete/ I'll be performing "Join us for an afternoon of film and live performance showcasing some of the most exciting work in this field. The event brings together some of the most celebrated poets and artists working at the intersection of visual art and poetry."
Videos from Kettle's Yard talk on Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's the Wrestlers
An amazing night in Cambridge with Jenny Powell, Sarah Turner and Lynn Nead www.stevenjfowler.com/thewrestlers
Reading at Kettle's Yard, before Gaudier-Brzeska
What a remarkable experience, to read at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, this past May 13th, to share a panel with Dr. Sarah Victoria Turner and Professor Lyn Nead, to read before the original The Wrestlers relief by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and to be welcomed to speak about my first love, wrestling, the sport, as a lifestyle and practise. I had long looked forward to this event, building as it did from my previous collaboration with Sarah for the tate online, where I had the chance to write original poems in response to the relief. www.stevenjfowler.com/thewrestlers
I was given such a generous welcome by Dr.Jenny Powell, who had curated the exhibition of Gaudier-Brzeska’s work, and everytime I see Lyn, who is as an extraordinary thinker as she is a person, we are talking about our shared love of fight sports. Our wide ranging discussion covered the specifics of the relief itself but also wider historical context, with Sarah leading the way with an insightful talk. I mainly focused on the actual technique being shown in the relief and had a small impromptu demonstration on myself, before ending the night with a reading in the galleries themselves. A really memorable night.
a look inside the Feinde exhibition at the Hardy Tree Gallery
The beautiful works that make up the Feinde exhibition have become one. So proud of this exhibition, one of my happiest/finest curatorial achievements. The video features a cameo from Tommy the dog.
The Feinde exhibition: May 1st to 14th at the Hardy Tree Gallery
This two week exhibition, which focuses the Feinde: Austrian Enemies project (which has four events in 2 cities over two weeks) right in the heart of London, in the Kings Cross based Hardy Tree Gallery is a wonderful opportunity for me to bring together over a dozen new visual poetry artworks in exhibition, all from contemporary artists, with a decided nod to the legacy of the British and Austrian postwar Concrete poetry pioneers. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/feinde
http://hardytreegallery.com 119 Pancras Road. London, UK. NW1 1UN :
Gallery Hours - Thursday to Sunday Midday to 6pm.
Poets like Bob Cobbing, Edwin Morgan, HC Artmann, Friedrich Achleitner, Konrad Bayer & Gerhard Rühm have had an indelible influence on contemporary visual poets who are able to interrogate visuality, materiality and the very appearance of their language. I have taught their works at the Poetry school and Kingston University, and this exhibition is a way for me to bring together some of the work that evidences the necessity of this movement and how it can compliment everybody's work. This is a huge part of the exhibition, that the poets involved are not just Concrete poets, they work across poetic methodologies. We owe this flexibility disproportionately to the poets working in Austria and the UK from that period.
The exhibition will feature works by Anatol Knotek, Victoria Bean, Peter Jaeger, Fabian Macpherson, Tim Atkins, Jeff Hilson, Nat Raha, Sophie Collins, Esther Strauss, Robert Herbert McClean, Ann Cotten, Prudence Chamberlain, Simon Barraclough, Max Hoefler and many others.
The opening hours will be Thursday to Sunday midday to 6pm, and we have a special view reading on Sunday May 10th, beginning at 7pm, free entry, with many of the exhibitors and readings from Emma Hammond, Cristine Brache & Ollie Evans.
Thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum in London
www.acflondon.org
Kettle's Yard: May 13th - on Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's the Wrestler's
So delighted to be reading & talking at the beautiful Kettle's Yard, alongside Sarah Victoria Turner and Lynda Nead, about the Wrestlers, the relief by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, that has been a real inspiration for me since I wrote about it a few years ago. May 13th in Cambridge.
http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/events/modern-art-dance/
"An evening talk and performance exploring Gaudier-Brzeska and modern artists’ engagement with wrestling and sport. Join Gaudier-Brzeska expert, Dr Sarah Victoria Turner (Paul Mellon Centre) and poet and trained wrestler Steven Fowler. Art historian Professor Lynda Nead (Birkbeck) will chair the event. A viewing of the exhibition and glass of wine will follow the talk."
The Wrestlers for the Tate
Happy to say my commission for the Tate has now been published online, as part of their In Focus series and thanks to the amazing work of Dr Sarah Victoria Turner, who has curated an extensive response to the 1914 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska plaster relief The Wrestlers, of which my work is only a small part.
There are ten poems, 9 for each cast of the relief and 1 for the original, as well as two short essays, one on the wrestling depicted in the piece and another on Ezra Pound, who was a close friend of Gaudier-Brzeska and a conduit between his work and my response.
Sarah Turner’s remarkable work on this project is immense, well worth checking out
“The large plaster relief Wrestlers was made in London by the French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891–1915) at a time when he was forging a reputation as one of the most radical and innovative sculptors of his generation. Gaudier-Brzeska was killed fighting in the First World War, and his achievements slipped from view in subsequent decades. In the mid-1960s, however, curator Jim Ede had the relief cast in an edition of nine to help make Gaudier-Brzeska’s work better known, and he gave a cast to Tate.
This project explores the circumstances of the making of the relief and the posthumous cast. Drawing on material in the Tate Archive and early twentieth-century sports periodicals, it includes previously unexamined material about Gaudier-Brzeska’s interest in wrestling and asks new questions about representations of sport and physicality in modern art and poetry at the beginning of the twentieth century.”