Poetics and Place

How do artworks ‘speak’, and how do we ‘listen’and respond? These questions underlie theinvestigation here of Roni Horn’s Pair ObjectIII: For Two Rooms, Emily Dickinson’s latermanuscripts, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s PassagesPaysages, Fiona Templeton’s Cells of Release andJenny Holzer’s Lustmord. The tenets of criticalperformance, art-writing and site-writinginform the critical method used in Poeticsand Place. Each chapter is dedicated to one ofthese five artworks, and is arranged in orderto fulfil three main objectives: to understandhow the artworks generate meaning through amaterial poetics in relation to place; to developa critical methodology for engaging with them;and to investigate their ethical potential andpolitical imperative. All of this, ultimately,facilitates the development of a triadic relationbetween theoretical concepts of sign, subjectand site at the crossover between poetry,art and spatial practices. This extends eachartwork beyond the dyad of a critical encounterin order to offer – and allow others to grasp– an appreciation of how the artwork figuresmeaningfully, as well as configures meaning,in the wider world of objects and things. Thebook concludes with a discussion of the ethicsof reading from the second person, opening upa debate concerning the role of empathy withincontemporary, politically engaged practices inart and poetry.