Bidspirit auction | PESTANA (Silvestre). CONSTRUIR o Poema

PESTANA (Silvestre). CONSTRUIR o Poema / Destruir o Objecto. [Portugal]. s.d. [c. 1985-1995]. - PESTANA (Silvestre) CONSTRUIR o Poema / Destruir o Objecto . Legenda impressa: «SILVESTRE PESTANA, ”Atómico Acto”, 1969». Electrografia a partir do poema-objecto original publicado em: Hidra 2. Lisboa, 1969. Org. E. M. de Melo e Castro. [Portugal]: s.n., s.d. [c. 1985-1995]. 1 ff.: il.; 300×210 mm. Electrograph by Silvestre Pestana (Funchal, 1949) reproducing his poem-object ”Atomic Act” (1969), one of the founding pieces of Portuguese experimental poetry. The original was presented in 1968 at the Alvarez Gallery in Porto and published the following year in Hidra 2 (Lisbon, 1969), organized by EM de Melo e Castro. The poem-object consisted of a rubber balloon with the letter H printed on it—evoking the atomic mushroom—accompanied by the dichotomous caption ”Build the Poem / Destroy the Object”: the reader was invited to blow up the balloon and burst it, completing the poem through its own destruction. As João Fernandes wrote, the piece constitutes a ”synthesis-statement of the contribution of experimental poetry to the redefinition of the art object through the objectification or spatialization of the text”. The electrographic technique faithfully reproduces the original composition — the balloon filled with the letter ”H”, the dividing line, the deflated balloon, and the double caption — transposing the three-dimensional poem-object onto the flat surface of the photocopy. The piece is featured in the catalog Infinite Tasks: When Art and the Book Become Limitless (CAM/Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 2012). Rare and highly valued. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate