Artists Space : Books & Talks
55 Walker Street
$5 Entrance Donation
Members Free
Limited capacity, entrance on a first come, first served basis
To mark the New York launch of his recent publication ‘K, Berlin-based artist Karl Holmqvist will give a reading at Artists Space : Books & Talks.
Holmqvist’s work centers on the printed and spoken word, extracting meaning out of often oblique textual arrangements with tools such as humor, repetition and vocal cadence. Forsaking linearity for a networked approach to language, Holmqvist’s “writing” connects words through their printed aesthetic qualities and aural pronunciations. A collage of cultural references and quotidian language implicates a direct call and response with the matter of contemporary life. To produce ‘K, a large part of the book’s material was also gathered as “loans” from historical movements that emphasized a graphic and visual approach to text, such as Futurism, Vorticism, and Lettrism, as well as from the work of contemporary artists such as Shannon Ebner and Ferdinand Kriwet.
Holmqvist’s work has been shown at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2012); Établissement d’en face projects, Brussels (2012); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2010); and included in Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011).
‘K is designed by the artist along with Joshua Schenkel, and published as a collaboration between Kunsthalle Zürich and Bergen Kunsthall, with JRP Ringier.