This seminar focuses on the intersection of language and visual art in the 20th century. We examine modernist and avant-garde experiments in word and image, and investigate the global rise of concrete and visual poetry and text-based art after World War II. We compare and combine methods from literary studies and art history, as well as other disciplines, including history and philosophy. Students explore techniques of close looking and reading in relation to a range of topics–medium, representation, abstraction, networks. Students also engage material practices by, e.g., realizing instruction pieces and assembling magazines.
