AHVC Research Talk: Curating the Poetry of Form (06.12.2017)

The Art History & Visual Cultures Research Centre invites you to a research seminar with

Eric Robertson, Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London

Curating the Poetry of Form

Wednesday 6th December 2017 at 6pm in Keynes Seminar Room 15, University of Kent

‘Arp: the Poetry of Forms’, currently showing at Turner Contemporary, is the first large-scale exhibition of Hans Jean Arp’s work in the UK since 1962. An important figure of Dada, Surrealism and Abstraction, Arp also influenced British Modernism. His diverse practice had a poetry and playfulness at its core that is as engaging for audiences today as it was in his lifetime. This landmark exhibition comprises around 80 loans, the majority of which have never been on display in the UK. Organised in collaboration with the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands, the exhibition was curated by Frances Guy and Professor Eric Robertson. In his talk, Eric Robertson will chart the challenges and pitfalls of this lengthy project from conception to completion.

Eric Robertson is Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Writing Between the Lines: René Schickele, citoyen français, deutscher Dichter 1883-1940 (Rodopi, 1995), Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor (Yale University Press, 2006, winner of the R. H. Gapper Book Prize),  Arp: The Poetry of Forms (Kröller-Müller Museum, 2017) and Blaise Cendrars and the Artistic Avant-Garde (Reaktion Books, forthcoming 2018). He is co-editor of Yvan Goll – Claire Goll: Texts and Contexts (Rodopi 1997, with Robert Vilain), Robert Desnos: Surrealism in the 21st Century (Peter Lang, 2006, with Marie-Claire Barnet and Nigel Saint), Dada and Beyond: Vol. 1: Dada Discourses and Vol. 2: Dada and its Legacies (Rodopi 2011 and 2012, with Elza Adamowicz). He has worked and published with museums including Almine Rech Gallery (New York), Arp Museum (Rolandseck), Stiftung Arp (Berlin), Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Hauser & Wirth (London, Los Angeles, New York and Zurich) and Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg.

A symposium exploring the work of Hans Jean Arp in conjunction with the exhibition Arp: The Poetry of Forms at Turner Contemporary. Organised by Turner Contemporary in partnership with the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London.To register for the symposium, visit: https://www.turnercontemporary.org/whats-on/category/symposium