ENG 274 - Topics: Text/Art: Literary Meets Visual (1)

In this course, you will examine the text art, visual poetry, and other intermedia work of writers and artists from the last 100 years, using these pieces to provide context and inspiration for your own projects. We’ll begin in the early 20th century with Italian Futurism’s “words-in-freedom” (parole in libertà) and the British Vorticist magazine Blast; move through later-20th-century artists such as Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Cecilia Vicuña; and end with contemporary writers whose work incorporates visual elements, including Instagram poets such as Rupi Kaur. Throughout the block, you will respond critically and creatively to this work, testing the limits of genre and medium, exploring the possibilities of guerrilla art interventions in an advertising- and media-saturated culture, and ultimately designing a final project that updates text art for our new media age.
(Fine Arts)