BOOK:Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go,Almine Rech Gallery

This catalogue is published in conjunction with the group exhibition “Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go” (31/10-16/12/17) at Almine Rech Gallery in New York. The exhibition featured the word as an image and its metonymic relation to the motif itself. The title refers to, as Ed Ruscha put it: “a noble quotation that is as timeless as it is poetic,” a line said by King Claudius in act three of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In a time where the word as a written unit (i.e. the meaning of the word and the displayed word) have become highly disparate due to digital and social media, the exhibition “Words Without thoughts Never to heaven go” points towards the actuality of a thorough examination of the word in artworks. The exhibition followed the increasing importance of words in art, starting from modernism and leading up through the twentieth century and into today. the comprehensive catalog in English features illustrations of all exhibited works along with essays reflecting the latest research by Richard Shiff and Eric Robertson alongside Dieter Buchhart. The exhibition was curated by Dr. Dieter Buchhart.-Efi Michalarou