POÈMES PARTITIONS D
2024-04-08In 1958, Bernard Heidsieck (1928-2014) visited an exhibition by Jean Degottex (1918-1988) at Kléber Gallery in Paris which featured a series of paintings strewn with signs reminiscent of Far Eastern calligraphy. Heidsieck has begun a new stage of poetic experimentation for the voice that he called the poème-partition [score-poem]. Inspired by Degottex’s paintings, he dedicated eleven of these poems to the painter, which he sent to the artist, in what was to be the first gesture in a long friendship. From as early as his first poetry collection in 1955, Sitôt dit, Heidsieck was interested in ‘extracting the poem from the page’ and ‘projecting it physically into space.’ In this, he was inspired by the sound revolution that Pierre Boulez was bringing to classical music. His poems were conceived not to be silently read but rather heard, spoken by the author in public or in recordings, inaugurating a field of ‘sound poetry’ that, together with Henri Chopin, he would become one of the chief proponents of.
Opposite – Horsphère Rouge, 1965
Exhibition runs through to June 1st, 2024
Mennour
6, rue du Pont de Lodi
75006 Paris
France
