The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-1923

by Johanna Drucker

Book Overview

Early in this century, Futurist and Dada artists developed brilliantly innovative uses of typography that blurred the boundaries between visual art and literature. In The Visible Word, Johanna Drucker shows how later art criticism has distorted our understanding of such works. She argues that Futurist, Dadaist, and Cubist artists emphasized materiality as the heart of their experimental approach to both visual and poetic forms of representation;...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226165027
• ISBN13: 9780226165028
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Visibility in Language and Art Exposed

In this fabulously demanding book, Drucker traces the development of how we see language, how we conceive of it on the page and canvas, and what the ramifications of that are in the realms of sound and meaning. This very densely written, scholarly text is at each page an explosion of citations and reflections which are the condensation of Drucker's dedicated research (I believe of 10+years!) and her exploration of the movements that define our time of the Word Made Flesh. She will either make you feel like you, too, have done all the work to get to these pages, or lead you off on your own hunt for more. Whichever it is, the journey is well worth the effort.

Great Book on Typography Art Movements and Literature

This is a great book that talks about Typography in the early avant-garde age; Futurism, Dada, Cubism. It discusses the relationship between visual art, typography and poetry. It's a great reference on experimental typography.