Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

    ENELNL

    The exhibitions Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp and Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens are a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.   

    28.04.2017 - 07.01.2018        

    M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen - Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerpen

    EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Kallirrois Avenue & Amvr. Frantzi Str., Athens 11743

    Paul De Vree

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    (c)image: M HKA
    Kleine Caroli, 1963
    Paul De Vree
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    ink, paper

    In the poem Kleine Caroli (1963) the visual aspect of the rhythmic typography does not attempt any formal imitation. The links created between ‘tiflis’, ‘nausica’ and ‘ulyssis’ are not so much elicited by any typographical emphasis but rather by their mutual associations. They relate to Odysseus’ desire for adventure and the deferral of love. ‘Tiflis’, the capital of Georgia in the Caucasus region, symbolises love and the exotic. The main character in the poem, ‘kleine Caroli’, refers to the ‘Ulysses’ in us all, endlessly searching, in this case for the woman Nausica, the female landscape, here surreally expressed as the mountain range that extends from Spain (Cantabria) to the Caucasus, becoming lost in the labyrinth. The essence of this poem is the observation that man still strives for absolute ideals within his own relativity and that of the world around him.

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