SALON

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 12:00 AM UTC

When text meets art

A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art highlights the meaning and mess of language

By

Topics: Imprint,

When text meets art
This article originally appeared on Imprint.

ImprintIn the exhibition “Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language,” which opened on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, words are treated as tools and as totems. Gathering text-based work by artists from Marcel Duchamp to Tauba Auerbach alongside contemporary designers like Paul Elliman and Dexter Sinister, the show offers varied takes on how to make meaning out of language, and also how to make a beautiful mess of it—sometimes at the same time.

A portion of Paul Elliman's Found Fount, at the Museum of Modern Art's "Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language"

The typographic theme runs through work by pillars of midcentury art (Lawrence Weiner, Robert Smithson) and contemporary design upstarts (like Experimental Jetset and Stuart Bailey and David Reinfurt, who collaborate as Dexter Sinister and produced the exhibition catalog—$5 in the MoMA gift shop and downloadable for free—as an issue of their magazine, Bulletins of the Serving Library). There’s also a bright thread of humor. Pick up one of three black telephones sitting on a shelf, and you’ll suddenly be on the line with Frank O’Hara or John Giorno or Robert Creeley, who generously recite a poem just for you (or in Allen Ginsberg’s case, chant incoherently in your ear).

Auerbach has some cheeky little ditties on display, including The Whole Alphabet (lowercase), a single piece of paper with all 26 letters typed one on top of the other in a formalist blur. Her other works are literal-minded jokes that use the expected physical form of the book as their punchlines: a 3,200-page RGB color test, for instance.

Cardboard scraps become letterforms in Elliman's Found Fount.

But the conceptual heart of the show, and the highlight, is Found Fount, by the London-based designer Paul Elliman. Elliman has long been experimenting with deconstructions of language and objects—creating alphabets from photobooth portraits, for example. Whereas some artists in the show disassemble language into its physical forms or turn it into sculptures drained of immediate linguistic meanings, Elliman conjures words from ordinary objects. “Dead Scissors,” for example, collects broken-off scissor handles that look like the letter P.

More of Found Fount's flotsam

Although Elliman has been gathering the pieces of Found Fount for 23 years, this is the first time the physical forms have been publicly on display. The show collects just a small sampling of the work, which still takes up a vast vitrine: cracked pieces of plastic, rusted metal U-rings, rhinestone-encrusted broaches, plastic beads, and cardboard cast-offs. The cardboard, mind you, has been not purposefully cut out into letterforms. Rather, they’re the random bits that are sometimes glued into folded boxes—the corners, wedges, and other pieces normally destined for the recycling bin. Here, however, they’re lovingly arranged and displayed on a black background under Plexiglas alongside Elliman’s other everyday wonders.

In Found Fount, silver hoop earrings become O's and lowercase g's

Tape dispensers and other plastic detritus in Found Fount

“Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language” runs through August 27. Paul Elliman will discuss his work on Wednesday, May 9, at 6 p.m.

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2012. Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America's oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.
Perrin Drumm

More Perrin Drumm.

Next Article

You Might Also Like

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

Gripping photos: The people of the Turkey protests (slideshow)

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • The protests take on a festive element as police forces move out of the park and square. Wearing a gas mask, this young man dances to traditional Turkish music in front of Taksim Square’s Ataturk Monument.

  • In Gezi Park since March 31st, this protester, originally caught off-guard by the Government’s teargas and water cannons, went out and bought a Russian army mask from WWII, preparing for what was to come.

  • This rambunctious boy seems to be enjoying the chaos. After taking this picture he threw a stone at the already destroyed building in the background.

  • Forming a line, the police face off directly with protesters in Taksim Square. After a while, they retreated and there was a general cheer – a back-and-forth dance that has been common since the beginning of this protest.

  • An elderly woman in Gezi Park reads the news. The tent community occupying the park was violently destroyed on June 16th.

  • Many different groups had set up booths to promote their cause in Taksim Square and Gezi Park. Standing in front of one, this man waves his flag while posing with conviction.

  • Many home-remedies are used to minimize the effects of tear gas. This woman has put a milky solution on her face, removing her mask after the tear gas dissipated. Before sunrise, the police came again for another round of teargasing.

  • People capitalize on the uprising -- selling flags, beer, gas masks, sky lanterns and spray paint to name just a few of the popular items.

  • On Monday morning, June 11, the police execute a strong offensive. Many plain-clothed police officers, like the ones seen here, clash with protesters in the side streets away from the main stand-off in Taksim.

  • The authorities seem to be most aggressive in the night, pushing protesters away from the square and park. After being teargassed this young woman catches her breath with other protesters on Siraselviler Street.

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 3 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America's oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint

advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.

Continue Reading

follow salon

Most Read

Video of the Day

Watch More Here »

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves": Growing up primate

Recommendations