Sitting Between the Sea and the Buildings: A Symposium of Poets and Artists

Taking Joan Mitchell’s legacy of collaboration with poets as a starting point, this day-long symposium will include talks, readings, demonstrations, and performances that explore intersections of visual art and poetry.

Participants include poets Bill Berkson, Douglas Kearney, and John Yau; visual artists Terry Adkins, Lesley Dill, and Mildred Howard; and April Sheridan and Stephen Woodall of the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago.

Sitting Between the Sea and the Buildings, named after the first line of John Ashbery’s “The Painter,” is organized in connection with the exhibition currently on view at the Poetry Foundation, Joan Mitchell: At Home in Poetry. The exhibition features the large-scale quadriptych painting, Minnesota (1980), as well as photographs, correspondence, print portfolios, and artists’ books that Joan Mitchell created in collaboration with poets.

The symposium will conclude with the announcement of a commissioned performance piece, which will be created as a collaboration between Terry Adkins and Douglas Kearney and unveiled at a later date. The goal of this commission is to demonstrate how collaboration can change the way artists and poets think and work.

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Co-sponsored by the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Poetry magazine