The students in professor Molly Warnock’s art history course “’The Long Sixties’ in Europe” hosted an exhibit of Lettrist art from the Special Collections in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library on April 22.
The Lettrism movement was founded in Paris by French poet Isidore Isou in the late 1940s. This movement stemmed from pre-WWII artistic movements such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism.
The fundamental principle behind Lettrism is the breakdown of language into individual letters and similarly breaking down artistic medium into the elements of which they consist.
The movement introduced the notion of “hypergraphy,” which combines real and invented alphabets and symbols in order to create a new form of super-writing.
Throughout this exhibit, the movement was showcased in diverse forms of artistic mediums such as film, photography, poetry, music and dance. The students also set up activities in order to help materialize this movement for those viewing the exhibit, including stations in which visitors could write their names in their own super-writing, as well as Lettrist-themed cakes and desserts.
According to sophomore Lizzy Glass, a student in Warnock’s course, the students in the class researched and gave a presentation on two objects. Throughout the semester, the students planned all aspects of the event, from writing the labels for the objects to putting together the activities.
“I had a really great time planning the exhibit with my class,” Glass said.
