Pierre Garnier

In the exhibition, we find two of the first typographic experiments performed by Pierre Garnier, still linked to the research of concrete poetry. The French artist highlights the letters and the solidity of their sign on the paper: here every word has the space to be able to expand or to shrink. On the other hand, in Anthologie I, simple geometric forms interact with the letters, starting a dialogue; the words are released from the two- dimensionality of the surface, and is crossed by the gaze of the reader-viewer.

Pierre Garnier (1928–2014). Born in Amiens, France, Garnier studied literature in Germany, returning to France and settling in Paris where he met the fluxus artist Henri Chopin who encouraged him to concentrate on experimental poetry. Together with his wife, the poetess Ilse Garnier, he expands the theory of spatial poetry as the development of concrete and public poetry, and publishes in 1968 Spatialisme et poésie concrète for Gallimard Editions. He published around seventy books of poetry.