Unpublished Joan Brossa

The Joan Brossa Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) present Els etcèteres (The Etceteras, 1970), the first book of Brossa's visual poetry to be published since his death. The volume is published by the Centre Internationale de Poésie Marseille with support from the Institute of Catalan Letters.

Etcetera, etcetera. This is the phrase often used to conclude any discussion of Brossa's art, given the multiplicity of registers mastered by this poet, artist, scriptwriter, magician, poster artist, playwright... Amongst all these registers, visual poetry is perhaps the most universal, because it requires no translation of any kind.

Thus it is that a French institution, the Centre Internationale de Poésie Marseille (cipM), with support from the Institute of Catalan Letters (Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, ILC), recently published Els etcèteres (The Etceteras).

The book, which is the first anthology of unpublished visual poetry by Joan Brossa (1919-1998) to see the light since his death (the most recent complete volume prior to this was published way back in 1996 and is now impossible to find), is also the first in the genre to appear in France. The work, which forms part of the Habitable Poems series and dates back to 1970, Brossa’s most prolific year in terms of visual poetry, provides a rare chance to see these pieces in the context of their composition – the book.

The manuscript, which comprises a series of twenty-eight heretofore unpublished visual poems, has been conserved at the MACBA Study Centre since January, when the Joan Brossa Foundation and Barcelona City Council deposited the artist’s collection, archive and library with the Museum.

Location: Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. (MACBA). Plaça dels Angels, 1. 08001 Barcelona. Spain
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