Poetry Reading: Cecilia Vicuña & Jena Osman for Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair

Please join Hauser & Wirth Publishers in collaboration with Printed Matter and Book Works for a special reading of poems by Cecilia Vicuña and Jena Osman, on the occasion of the NY Art Book Fair and the release of the new, expanded facsimile edition of Vicuña’s ‘Saborami’ from Book Works.

Cecilia Vicuña created ‘Saborami’ in the aftermath of the September 1973 military coup in Chile. Combining poetry, journal entries and documentation of artworks, the book was published in Devon, England in a limited edition of hand-made copies by the artist-led Beau Geste Press. Though the book is highly regarded, it has also been hard to access.

This new and expanded facsimile edition restates ‘Saborami’ as a central example of artistic engagement in material and revolutionary resistance.

This event is free to attend; however, due to limited space, reservations are recommended.
Click here to register.

About Cecilia Vicuña
Cecilia Vicuña is a poet, artist, activist and filmmaker whose work addresses pressing concerns of the modern world, including ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. Born and raised in Santiago de Chile, she has been in exile since the early 1970s, after the military coup against the president Salvador Allende. In London, she was a co-founder of Artists for Democracy in l974.

She coined the term ‘Arte Precario’ in the mid-1960s in Chile, as a new independent and non-colonized category for her precarious works composed of debris, structures that disappear in the landscape, which include her quipus (knot in Quechua), envisioned as poems in space. Vicuña has re-invented the ancient Pre-Columbian quipu system of non-writing with knots through ritual acts that weave the urban landscape, rivers and oceans, as well as people, to re-construct a sense of unity and awareness of interconnectivity. These works bridge art and poetry as a way of ‘hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard.’ Her poetry and ‘Palabrarmas’ (word-weapons) stem from a deep enquiry into the roots of language. Her early work as a poet in the 60’s was simultaneously celebrated by avant-garde poetry magazines as ‘El Corno Emplumado,’ Mexico City (l961–1968), and censored and/or suppressed for many decades in Chile and Latin America.

Solo exhibitions of Vicuña’s work have been organized at a number of major institutions, including, most recently, MALBA, Buenos Aires (2023), Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile, Chile (2023); Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2022); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2022); Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia (MAMU), Bogotá, Colombia (2022); Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid, Spain (2021); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA (2020); and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico (2020). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including in documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017), and the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and is part of major museum collections around the world.

The author of more than 30 volumes of art and poetry published in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, her most recent books are: ‘PALABRARmas,’ USACH, Editorial de la Universidad de Santiago (2023); ‘Word Weapons,’ Co-published by RITE Editions and Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2023); ‘Libro Venado,’ Direcciones, Buenos Aires (2022); ‘Sudor de Futuro,’ Altazor, Chile (2021); ‘Cruz del Sur,’ Lumen Chile (2020), ‘Minga del Cielo Oscuro,’ CCE, Chile (2020), and ‘New & Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña,’ edited and translated by Rosa Alcalá, Kelsey Street Press (2018), among many others.

Cecilia Vicuña was the winner of the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas 2023, one of the most prestigious awards given by her homeland. Preceding this recognition, Vicuña was elected a foreign honorary member of the United States Academy of Arts and Letters and also received the Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2022 at the 59th Venice Biennale.

About Jena Osman
Jena Osman's latest book is ‘A Very Large Array: Selected Poems,’ published by Adam Pendleton's DABA Books this past fall. Other books include ‘Motion Studies’ (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019), ‘Public Figures’ (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), ‘The Network’ (Fence Books, 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009), ‘An Essay in Asterisks’ (Roof Books, 2004) and ‘The Character’ (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). She co-edited the journal ‘Chain’ for 12 years with Juliana Spahr, after which they edited ChainLinks Books. In 2011, ChainLinks published a reproduction of Cecilia Vicuna's ‘Saborami.’ Osman lives in Philadelphia where she teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Temple University.

About Hauser & Wirth Publishers
In keeping with Hauser & Wirth’s artist-centric vision, Hauser & Wirth Publishers works to bring readers into the universe of artists and behind the scenes of their practices. From publishing artists’ writings and exceptional exhibition-related books to commissioning new scholarship and pursuing the highest levels of craft in design and bookmaking, Hauser & Wirth Publishers creates vital, lasting records of artists’ work and ideas, forging critical gateways to the cultural discourse they inspire.

Through its Oral History Initiative, Hauser & Wirth Publishers is building an enduring record of artists’ voices for future generations. Additionally, the imprint publishes Ursula magazine, a bi-annual print and digital periodical that features essays, profiles, interviews, original portfolios, films and photography by thought-provoking writers and artists from around the world.

About Book Works
Book Works is dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists, and their projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects. Activities include publishing, a lecture and seminar program, exhibitions, the development of an on-line archive, and artists’ surgeries and workshops held by both the publishing department and the studio.

About Printed Matter
Founded in 1976, Printed Matter, Inc. is the world’s leading non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination, understanding and appreciation of artists’ books and related publications.