Astro-poems and vertical group exercises: Concrete poetry at CSA

Chelsea Space is pleased to announce Astro-poems and vertical group exercises: Concrete poetry at CSA [Chelsea School of Art], curated by Gustavo Grandal Montero, librarian and researcher. The exhibition surveys the adoption of Concrete Poetry by British artists and designers, charting its evolution in the central years of the 1960s, displaying a range of experimental approaches on and off the page that explore the possibilities of language materialised into 3D objects, and the relationship between these constructions and their surrounding spaces. The exhibition presents key original artworks from this period by Tom Edmonds (1944-1971), student and later lecturer at CSA and influential designer, artist and educator Edward Wright (1912-1988), Head of Graphics at CSA, with collaborations from a range of other artists, such as Ian Hamilton Finlay and Dom Sylvester Houédard, and newly discovered archival documentation.

Image: Installation view including Tom Edmonds work, Diploma show CSA 1967

(Digitised slide, courtesy Chelsea College of Arts Library, University of the Arts London)