RECEIVED: KDJ Dumps Trashpo for Stunning Magritte Visual Poetry Homage (Orlando, Florida, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Opening page of KDJ's chapter for the visual poetry collaborative book (Orlando, Florida, USA)

 

April 5, 2012 - Many friends know KDJ as a high priestess of Trashpo. Her ongoing recovery from head trauma and whacky exploits are covered in every issue of the DKult fanzine. KDJ's spectacular contribution to the collaborative visual poetry book (Edition #1) headquartered at the IUOMA reveals other talents and a far different sensibility.

 

Personally, I am not surprised. She has already done some beautiful asemic work. Individual pages from this chapter have been posted elesewhere and are receving praise. I decided to blog the entire chapter as part of the documentation for the visual poetry project Cheryl Penn (South Africa) and I are coordinating.

 

KDJ includes a nicely written an artist's statement as part of the chapter. This has not been the norm and helps answer many of those questions that arise after the work has been released:

 

Artist's statement for visual poetry chapter by KDJ

 

Now that most of the chapters are circulating, I will venture to say both editions reveal a tendency toward surrealism and an interest in dreams among the artists. This is by no means universally consistent, only a tendency. For instance, I think of Angie Cope's (Wisconsin, USA) Joseph Cornell chapter. Cleveland Wall (Pennsylvania, USA) has done a tribute to the same artist. This is a slight swerve from DaDa and Fluxus influences on mail-art and might also say something about the choice of favorite artists.

 

In terms of the interplay between text and image, KDJ's interest in the role of titles intrigues me - not only because Magritte's are so compelling and cryptic but because written titles are integral to traditional poetry and visual art. Titles are often used strategically to provide meaning and can sometimes alter a viewer's perception of a work entirely, even provide an ironic twist. So a visual poem partially composed of titles seems like a great concept. Here is the reverse side of the artist's statement:

 

 

Onward to more gorgeous pages (two originally missing pages!): 

 

And more:

 

 

KDJ's fantastic collages certainly help explain why people like the chapter so much. The tricky part - the visual poetry aspect - involves the letter-image interplay. Nearly everyone in the project also seemed eager to explore this middle-ground approach to vispo. (Tic Tac's (Germany) chapter was more language-centered in comparison.)

 

For me, KDJ's chapter provides a relatively seamless integration; the written-word connections appear natural. They are not jarring nor do they specifically draw attention to tensions between writing and visual image, the materials of composition, which is definitely another possible strategy. I assume that was her intent, so the illogic of dreams and Magritte's world can still dominate: 

 

 

At the upper-left (above) is a packet of cut-up strips with titles on one side and cursive writing on the other. These can be taken out, examined, arranged - whatever you like - to add a haptic as well as interactive component. I think this is a nice touch (no pun intended), and they are fun. This part also reveals KDJ used very sturdy paper, which I hear is appreciated by those among us with discerning binding skills. Here is a view of the cut-ups:

 

 

Due to the inclusion of the artist's statement, we lose a collage, which brings us to the chapter's stunning concluding page:

 

 

This collage has appeared as a stand-alone elsewhere and is hard to resist as a fav page of the chapter. The combination of this work with displaced Magritte titles throughout provides a consistent, conceptual underpinning to work that, accepting its relation to surrealism, is in many ways linear when compared with much work being produced today.

 

We were never very concerned with definitions in this project, but KDJ's chapter does raise some questions about the murky line between collage and visual poetry. When I came back to mail-art and vispo after having, like the notorious Ed Baker, "dropped out" for a while, I was thrilled to see folks such as Geof Huth, Ficus, David Chirot, and of course John Bennett had resolved some nagging quagmires left over from concrete poetry.

 

I am thrilled with the new directions in which David's work has taken us especially. I also felt this slight concern that some of these innovations could easily be dismissed as collage and nothing more. A close look at much of Chirot's work reveals it is not collage at all - not even the composition method; but at the outset you could easily mistake it for collage. In other instances he draws from collage, but what would be more natural coming out of the DaDa-Fluxus continuum?

 

Visual poetry seems to be the best-known in the universities of these strange forms we are accustomed too. That is precisely where you are most likely to find the resistance, but it does not seem to have happened and a "literature" on vispo has taken root (for bettter or worse). I was either worrying needlessly or on the wrong track or maybe I am just inclined to say do not forget the poetry part - whatever that might mean to you. Clearly, the artists in the project did not, and it has been yet another great collaborative experience. Here is KDJ's envelope:

 

Many thanks, KDJ. I hope DKULT gives you a break on this one.

MAIL-ART PSYCHIC

I reckon it is, Jed.

 

4 the Bruce Lee Look-A-Like Contest

 

3 minus 3 = ____

 

Knot's Landing

 

"20 years of schooling and.." you get a tee-shirt with a picture of a picture.

 

Goes with neither

 

Double-naught spy

 

JG - "cement pond." No, they can't swim.

 

Corso como, Gregory. Gasoline. It's a match!

 

cabbages & ______

 

I see a baker's dozen, but probably more, CC.

 

All tied up in nots.

 

Erni & Max _______

 

[cheryl penn]

Great blog - on receipt KDJ's work I went and watched one of my favorite movies - AGAIN - The Thomas Crown Affair - but the new one with Rene Russo - the music is fantastic - but also the part where Pierce B defies the museum by swamping it with Magritte look-alikes :-) X

[De Villo Sloan]

NYET! Take Back Wall Street is a pheasant uprising! 99% of the pheasants!

[De Villo Sloan]

Marie, you have me laughing seriously. I know you can speak multiple languages & your use of "reckon" was not meant as a criticism. It was sort of an anachronism & you're entitled to make something that comes close to a mistake. We all make them all over the place in our comments, etc.

 

But I hope you let "reckon" go now because you are starting to dig a bigger hole w/ your faithful US fans: (1) I'd try to avoid using "reckon" & "peasant" in the same sentence. We like to think we don't have peasants anymore; that was Marie Antonette speaking. And - me included - none of my comments were meant to suggest there is anything negative about life in a rural environment. I prefer it, actually.

 

Finally, I can't argue with the BBC. "Reckon" is totally appropriate & probably universal. I'm going to use it more myself. So thanks, & don't fret over it. (Dw is miffed about the banning of French elsewhere, but he'll go with the flow.)

[Marie Wintzer]

As chance would have it I heard it again on the radio today. It was BBC, during an interview, and not of a peasant. It's not as rural as you want it to be :-)

[De Villo Sloan]

I reckon he's back, pardner. We'll try to keep him a regular feature. "Here's Johnny..."

[Marie Wintzer]

Oh, am I reckoning or what, the M-A P is back, yey.

[De Villo Sloan]

Skybridge - thanks. I think the project produced some fantastic work & several lost classics still left go on my list!

 

Angie - it's almost as if you & KDJ got together & worked on a shared theme. I read a posting where you wrote about Joseph Cornell's dream debris concept: the images & pieces of dreams that stay w/us for days or longer. I think that's a great way to think of all the cryptic yet very powerful imagery we're seeing in the chapters.

 

Quagmire - well, you know, I have to put in a "theory" rant that I hope many wisely skip over for the pics. You are at the center of it there in Visconsin.

 

Katerina - Cleveland Wall is someone I want to write about. She participates in the projects, is a fine poet & has an interest in alchemy. I hope we can take a closer look at her work. And, Kat, thanks for the fantastic work you've sent. Need to devote a book to your art.

 

Marie! Yes, you posted a KDJ collage. You scooped me. I had been planning to make my fame & fortune by bringing KDJ's talent to the world. You beat me to it.

 

KDJ - thank you for your work. I'm just doing what I was trained to do, and it's more fun than writing reviews of bad books of poetry published by pathetic university presses for snooze-oid academic journals. This sort of writing is a great experience & somehow gives me a sense of doing something meaningful rather than playing in the same old rigged game.

[De Villo Sloan]

KDJ UPDATE! 2 LOST COLLAGES FOUND!

 

Two more beautiful KDJ collages have been added to the blog. See white tagged: "The quandry of painting." Two pages were stuck together! Last night when I was going through this, the numbers weren't working out. But I'm terrible with the counts, so I thought it was me. So two lost collages recovered.

 

Thanks for the comments. I'll get back for more later because some good points were raised, and I want to add my two cents.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

What an amazing chapter you received, Sloan, from KDJ! The Vispo One group is so into Magritte! Cleveland Wall also has a homage to the man...flying high...absolutely fantastic:

[Marie Wintzer]

I was very lucky to get a preview of the chapter even though I am not participating in the vispo projects. She did such a great job re-creating the spirit of Magritte and making it her own. My favorite page has to be the one with the cows!