Logomotives

The Logomotives group, founded in 1983 by Sarenco, was established as an “international of intelligence” that, during the 1980s, revived the challenge of visual poetry. It is a decade characterized by a general weakening of social and political struggles, witnessing a return to painting with the Transavanguardia movement. Referring to McLuhan’s studies on media as ideological tools, Debord’s observations on entertainment in today’s society and Baudrillard’s research on the simulacra, the Logomotives – which include Arias-Misson, Blaine, Bory, De Vree, Miccini, Verdi and Sarenco – start a work from language, words and the logos, which is what sets speech or spoken words into motion.

The works presented here are a survey of the group: Revolutie and De malen des contestatie by De Vree, Segni nello spazio and Cut-Up A by Verdi show the influence of concrete poetry. Bory with his work, L’éternité, shows the sublimation of the quintessential object used by poets, the typewriter. Blaine presents a dissolution of the alphabet with the work Mon premier abécédaire, while Miccini illustrates in his collage Basta un colpo… the synglossia of visual poetry.

Giovanni Francesco Silvano Verdi di Belmont was a poet, painter, writer, and professor of philosophy. Verdi has experimented with literature since the 1950s by researching visual and sound expressions in order to achieve a new and original use of words. Between 1966 and 1967 he organized, together with Arrigo Lora Totino and Adriano Spatola, the first exhibitions of concrete poetry in Italy. He has written numerous works of linear poetry and non-fiction.