In a bold move, Boston Sculptors Gallery has invited poets to partner with artists to create collaborative works combining both of their voices. The result is an unexpected cross-pollination that engages the common ground of these two distinct forms of artistic expression.
Murray Dewart, one of the gallery’s founding members, recently edited the anthology, Poems About Sculpture. In the foreword, Robert Pinsky asks, “What has art made of breath to do with an art made of matter?” Twenty-four pairs of sculptors and writers have taken up the challenge of this timeless question. Each sculptor and each poet has created a new work in response to his or her partner’s art or writing. The exhibit is about the essence of inspiration, which is mysterious, profound, and intimate. It is a unique collaboration between two art forms: poetry, which is ephemeral and sculpture, which is concrete. Embracing materials as varied as silk, steel, bronze, rawhide, granite, wood, wax, glass, light and sound, the sculptors interpret in form what the poets have alluded to in words. The wide range of poetry encompasses hip-hop, free verse, rhymed couplets and ekphrastic poetry, which is a tradition of vivid verbal descriptions of works of art.
Among the distinguished participating poets are Robert Pinsky, former US Poet Laureate and founder of the Favorite Poem Project and Mary Bonina of the Writers Room of Boston. Current Poet Laureate of the City of Boston, Danielle Legros Georges of Haitian origin, and Chard deNiord, Poet Laureate of Vermont, are two of the poets reading at gallery events during the exhibit. Ernestine Hayes, Writer Laureate of Alaska, and Anaïs Duplan, Founder of the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, extend the breadth of the writing offered, as does Dany Crosby Baez, originally from Uruguay, who writes in Spanish.
Boston Sculptors Gallery, an elegant and spacious venue in the heart of Boston’s SOWA arts district, easily accommodates a wide variety of expression from freestanding installations to wall works and projections. BREATH and MATTER offers unusual integrations of source material (breath) as inspiration for form (matter). With sculptors being inspired by poets, and poets responding to sculpture, this is sure to be one of the most innovative shows of the season! Join us for our Grand Opening on July 18, from 5 to 7 p.m. The reception will feature readings by several participating poets. A second reception and reading will take place on August 3 as part of SOWA’s First Fridays evening gallery walk. Please visit bostonsculptors.com for a complete listing of poets’ readings and other events at the gallery. The public is invited free of charge.
Participating Sculptor/Poet teams include: B Amore/Mary Bonina, John Anderson/Tomas O’Leary, Edwin Andrews/Anne Elliot, Jodi Colella/Wendy Drexler, Murray Dewart/Robert Pinsky, Donna Dodson/ Danielle Legros Georges, Rosalyn Driscoll/Oliver de la Paz, Sally Fine/Nancy Lord, Chris Frost/David Daniel, Peter Haines/S. David, Michelle Lougee/Lauret E. Savoy, Susan Lyman/Alison Deming, Nancy Winship Milliken/Chard deNiord, Andy Moerlein/Ernestine Hayes, Claudia Olds Goldie/Lee Sharkey, Eric Sealine/Sophie Wadsworth, Nancy Selvage/Ros Zimmermann, Liz Shepherd/Emmet Van Driesche, Julia Shepley/Audrey Henderson, Andrea Thompson/Mary Pinard, Hannah Verlin/Anaïs Duplan, Leslie Wilcox/Lisa Harries Schumann, Andy Zimmermann/Joseph Torra, Nora Valdez/Dany Crosby Baez.
Founded in 1992 by eighteen prominent Boston-area artists, Boston Sculptors Gallery articulates, challenges and promotes the role of sculpture in the public sphere, in communities, and in the lives of individuals. The gallery currently represents thirty-eight artists offering innovative sculpture and installations in a wide range of media. It is the
only sculptors’ organization in the country that maintains its own exhibition space. In twenty-six years, the co-operative has held over 227 exhibitions and supported the work of 58 sculptors with work shown in 48 states and 36 foreign countries. Gallery members have received numerous honors including 81 residencies, 315 awards or fellowships and 134 grants. Members have taught in 70 settings, generated 169 permanent public art works and 308 temporary public artworks and are included in 1,100 private and public collections.