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Active Poetry. Poem by Ewa

Active Poetry. Poem by Ewa
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    • Active Poetry. Poem by Ewa
    • Poezja Aktywna. Poemat Ewy
  • 1975
  • text installation, about 3500 letters, white cardboard
  • 12 cm
Ewa Partum has chosen to show her video “Poem by Ewa” (1971–73) in manifold ways. One is in the form of an installation where several hundred white cardboard letters of the type featured in the video are strewn across the floor to accompany the video’s large-format projection. This installation highlights the performances by Partum seen in the video—performances in which she groups the cut-out letters around a tree in the woods, arranges a pile of such letters mixed together, throws the letters down a hill strewn with rocks and rubble, and has the letters float in the sea before they gradually disappear amidst the waves. Her attempt at dissecting her indecipherable poems into those individual components and minimal constituent parts that form their very meaning produces several levels of visual poetry, which itself represents an integral feature of conceptual artistic approaches during the 1970s. W.S.