Video-installation and some printed concrete poetry
2011, Ury created visual images of 17 concrete poems, to be presented online and as print versions (23.5 x 32.45 cm), digital image processing Mirco Sanftleben, two of these poems being femininity and femininiation, the rest being part of the series cement, weißer neger (white nigger), concrete party & oral call, cross word, toned poems, two toned, pommes, taste of space, leeres archiv.
Tanya Ury’s poetry (mainly in English with some German) exists in several constellations: the improvised oral, the written and spoken, together in video form; and within the poems themselves, there are variations on traditional verse, with certain slips of tongue and thought; but also the echoic sound, and concrete poetry (i.e. text as image); and then there the performance as verbal communication — this poetry has a euphonic quality.
Tanya Ury has draws her inspiration from many sources — in a manner similar to Edith Sitwell she has worked together with musicians to create innumerable sound pieces, mostly with improvised text and music – occasionally with a written text.
Dame Edith Sitwell, an English poet (1887−1964), wrote in a broad manner and worked on a collaborative project with the composer William Walton in 1922, to produce “Façade – An Entertainment”.
“The poems (Façade), (…) are abstract poems — that is, they are patterns in sound… experiments… enquiries into the effect on rhythm, and on speed, of the use of rhymes, assonances and dissonances, placed outwardly and inwardly (at different places in the line) and in most elaborate patterns.’”
From the programme notes to Façade, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, London. www.auricleensemble.or.…..).pdf
Ury has also created other artworks that might be considered visual poetry. Moving Message 1992, incorporates an LED sign displaying the words: you are why; Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000 is a photo series combined with poetry and wrestlewithyourangel 2001, is a neon sign produced together with the neon sign neonazi 2001; the title of a double photo portrait lesser is me more or less 2003 plays on the name of the German Post-Impressionist Lesser Ury, as does the title of a further double portrait or else 2007, which refers to the German writer Else Ury. The title of a third photo-portrait Beelzebularin 2005 (in the Promised Land series) reveals itself to be an anagram of the biblical Bezalel Ben Uri. half dimensional — semi detached 2010, combines the first of the half dimensional poems with the photograph semi detached.
concrete – a collection of works (including poetry series)
- femininity – femininiation 2011
- Moving Message 1992
- Word-fore-play – Recipe for Love 1995
- Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000
- wish 2000
- wrestlewithyourangel 2001
- neonazi 2001
- Poker Poems 2003
- elle la poésie 2003
- lesser is me more or less 2003
- Promised Land – a collection of works 2005
- Mid Summer 2005
- Un 2006
- or else 2007
- half dimensional poems 2009 – 2011
- half dimensional – semi detached 2010
- cement 2011
- on a mat appear 2011 -
- Lost Poems 2011
- weißer neger (white nigger) 2011
- informed 1.3.2011
- concrete party 2011
- oral call 2011
- cross word 2011 – 2012
- toned poems 2011 – 2012
- two toned 2012
- pommes 2012
- taste of space 2012 – 2013
- leeres archiv (empty archive) 2013
- archive burn out 2011 – 2014
- hero of your own saga 2013 – 2014
- magical reality 2014 – 2015
Presentation
2012 (11.6) Tanya Ury is the featured artist with new works in the June edition online of Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, University of Alberta, Canada, with Videos: Intimacy, cement & dark room; a series of 17 concrete poems, the photograph Alibijude, Selection from the Who’s Boss series, and 8 photos from Soul Brothers & Sisters, also 3 photos of Occupy in Strasbourg, from the Fading into the Foreground series; furthermore 5 toned poems (sounds, music and sound mix Kasander Nilist) and a peer review interview (text and Skype video) with Claude Desmarais, (CA)
www.csj.ualberta.ca/im…
2013 (11.7. – 7.9) “Righting the Image” — The Literature Collection in Cologne (LiK) and the Cologne City Library, present an exhibition of Tanya Ury’s work. Opening event — Thursday, 11.7.2013, 8 pm. Introduction: Dr. Gabriele Ewenz, Director of the LiK-Archive, with Suspended Beliefs — improvised poetry with improvised music: Tanya Ury (voice), Gernot Bogumil (trumpet), Kasander Nilist (double bass), Hans Salz (percussion), Peter Worringer (e‑guitar).
Collections
2014 mündliche tradition poster (height 85 cm x width 60 cm) in private collection Jürgen Müller, EL-DE-HAUS, Nazi Documentation Centre Cologne (D)