This lecture will discuss the avant-garde strategies of lifting of (and from time to time – changes to) borders between verbal and visual arts – in terms of typographic systems in the art of bookmaking in broad sense, in painting and in works of cinematography. The analysis will feature works by Polish artists (among them T. Czyżewski, F. and S. Themerson, W. Strzemiński, M. Szczuka, J. Przyboś, S. Młodożeniec), as well as pieces and art theories of European artists from the milieus of Italian and Russian futurism, Dadaism and constructivism. I will consider the avant-garde situation of “personal union”, when one artist employs different media (such as T. Czyżewski, or T. van Doesburg), as well as close collaboration between a writer and visual artist (Strzemiński and Przyboś or the Themeserons being cases in point). However, I am especially interested in the very relations between the juxtaposed materials: tensions created through collisions between words and images, cooperation of text and graphics on both semantic and compositional levels, and finally – inseparable verbo-visual “knots” that in some cases I consider wordgraphs. The final part of my presentation will discuss selected contemporary examples of logovisual phenomena inspired in a number of ways by the tradition of the avant-garde.his lecture will discuss the avant-garde strategies of lifting of (and from time to time – changes to) borders between verbal and visual arts – in terms of typographic systems in the art of bookmaking in broad sense, in painting and in works of cinematography. The analysis will feature works by Polish artists (among them T. Czyżewski, F. and S. Themerson, W. Strzemiński, M. Szczuka, J. Przyboś, S. Młodożeniec), as well as pieces and art theories of European artists from the milieus of Italian and Russian futurism, Dadaism and constructivism. I will consider the avant-garde situation of “personal union”, when one artist employs different media (such as T. Czyżewski, or T. van Doesburg), as well as close collaboration between a writer and visual artist (Strzemiński and Przyboś or the Themeserons being cases in point). However, I am especially interested in the very relations between the juxtaposed materials: tensions created through collisions between words and images, cooperation of text and graphics on both semantic and compositional levels, and finally – inseparable verbo-visual “knots” that in some cases I consider wordgraphs. The final part of my presentation will discuss selected contemporary examples of logovisual phenomena inspired in a number of ways by the tradition of the avant-garde.
Beata Śniecikowska – Polish studies scholar and historian of art, adjunct professor at the Department of Historical Poetics in the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include transcultural and intersemiotic relations, especially in the context of broadly defined modernism. She is particularly concerned with the question of audiality and visuality in poetry. For years, she has also been tracking connections between European literature and art with cultures of the Far East. Author of Słowo – obraz – dźwięk. Literatura i sztuki wizualne w koncepcjach polskiej awangardy 1918–1939 [Word-Image-Sound. Literature and the Visual Arts in Concepts of the Polish Avant-garde] (Kraków 2005), „Nuż w uhu”? Koncepcje dźwięku w poezji polskiego futuryzmu [Concepts of Sound in the Poetry of Polish Futurism] (Wrocław 2008) and Haiku in Polish. Genology from a Transcultural Perspective (Toruń 2016). Holder of grants from the Foundation for Polish Science and The Polish Ministry for Science and Higher Education, deputy chair of
“Centrum Międzynarodowych Badań Polonistycznych” (Center for International Polish Studies) foundation.