When Visual Art Turns To Words

At a recent(ish)* visit to the Tate Modern, I was captivated by art with words. An image of Venice with paragraphs of text, a flashing light installation which ran ribbons of words to make pithy phrases – it’s surprising in a gallery with such emphasis on form and impact to see words, associated with other art forms, being used outside of their assumed purpose.

These works do not lack impact or an awareness of the gallery space: half the joy of Jenny Holzer’s ‘Blue And Purple Tilt’ (the ribbons of flashing text mentioned above) is what it does to the room: in the high-ceiling, white-walled Tate Modern it sits in a corner, dominating the space, announcing itself from rooms away in a way you couldn’t fail to be aware of. It requires the lights to be dimmed, a room without windows, is one of only two artworks in that room of the gallery, a cavernous whale-body in space coveted by central London property developers and the art world alike… but it would do all of this without words. Why does it run through phrases? Why does it make itself so difficult to read at different times in the cycle, flashing on and off as the ribbons still scroll? Words make us stay. They engage us, even when random, and tell us we must look for longer. Jenny is dominating the space, and also demanding our time, causing her art to exist in multiple dimensions. Words are easily understood whilst still being enigmatic: language has evolved for communication more direct than art, but the context of the gallery invites the onlooker to interrogate their understanding of the words, as well as why the artwork is choosing to speak to us directly. Just like the idea of an unreliable narrator in literary arts, we must establish for ourselves whether to take the words in this artwork at face value or if they are inviting us to interrogate them further. Whilst some, more traditional artworks – like portraiture – are finished, presented in the gallery to be ogled and admired voyeuristically, the words here help to create an artwork that requires the viewer to be its full self; this is a piece both conceptual and aesthetic, both time-bound and able to be re-encountered. Holzer has made a piece which both intrigues and satisfies the onlooker as they choose.

Words have been a part of some traditions of visual art for centuries: think about incredible Moorish calligraphy that is incorporated into tilework, pottery, and architecture. In Roman scripts we have our Carolingian majuscule and our blackletter; in Arabic there is Kufic and Thuluth. Used commonly across the Islamic world to avoid literally depicting religious icons, this art is not intended for the gallery space and to be contemplated ‘as art’ (just like Western icons of the Madonna or saints) but still use words – whether filling a space or as small bismillah or zoomorphic pieces – to create a sense of majesty, of purpose, and of knowledge, that invites an emotional response from the onlooker that is both detached from the meaning of the words and enhanced by an understanding of what they say.

Words are also part of some of the UK’s most deliberate and impactful art: when entering or leaving the country through the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras a viewer encounters Tracey Emin’s installation ‘I Want My Time With You’. The words here are a direct response to the space: below a clock, in a space of transience, Emin is using words in her art to assert what the RA call “intimacy” within a public space and asks the viewer to look at themselves as much as the art. That first person pronoun itself is a question – who is speaking? Does the station speak to the observer, the reader speak to their loved ones? The words allow a transfer of identity that is not possible in other visual media (except, perhaps, video games) and the impact is Sublime – we, the onlooker, are relating to the space, but are not sure how.

As somebody with experience analysing and engaging with the written word, I am perhaps more arrested than most when I encounter it in the experience of seeking visual art. Recently** I saw Victor Hugo’s drawings at the RA and a huge part of its impact on me was the relationship of these images to the writing I love and the Romanticism I study. Hugo used his own name in visual arts – from a fireplace that would not have been out of place in the mansion of Charles Foster Kane to a hand-drawn calling card and signed pebbles from the Guernsey beach, the signature was clearly important to Hugo. Almost all of his drawings contained a gothic-script ‘vh’ stamp, typically in the bottom-right; yet, none of that felt as profound to me as seeing the brown ink that he used to write his letters and novels. The power of the word lies not in its intention, but in its possibility, and the best visual artworks that employ words expand their possibilities, their meanings, and their situation.

* This artwork is no longer on display, sorry – I waited too long between conceptualising this piece and writing it. I did that last time I wrote about the Tate Modern, too, when I wrote about this as an undergrad.

** Yes, actually recently this time – let me know in the comments if you’d like a write-up of the Hugo too.

On This Topic:

• Anybody interested in the use of words in art needs to be looking at the hurufiyya movement, which aims to marry calligraphy with other, more modern, styles of art.
• Neon sign, anybody?
• I have barely scratched the surface of this topic. I am also a big fan of Lichtenstein, but there is so much I don’t know about art.

To-Do:

• GRESSWELL
• Get a Dr appt (can’t book in advance, whose policy is this??)
• Plan to meet KV on Sat

Today’s Culture:

• I went to see ELO and they are selling their legacy short by trying to be a prog band – they’re not up there with Rush or Pink Floyd by any means, but Jeff Lynn is a killer pop producer whose influence is much more felt in that genre than on any guitar band I’ve heard in the last 20 years (besides, maybe, MCR in their Killjoys phase?)
• I bought Toilers of the Sea after seeing the Hugo and I have no regrets, what a writer that man is!!
• I take a minimum of two antihistamines a day and melt in the slightest heat. Summer is not for me, and I will be complaining about it, I am barely sorry.