Concrete poetry and Conceptual art: connections, communication and interrelationships in text-image movements from 1953-1980
Creators: name: Prestidge, Kathryn
Publisher: name: College of Arts, Humanities and Education, University of Derby
Year: 2024
Subjects: Concrete poetry
Conceptual art
conceptualism
counterculture
intermedia
infrastructure
interactions
poet-artist
Arts Lab
interdisciplinary
verbivocovisual

description: Concrete poetry and Conceptual art are often presented as separate or opposing 
movements. Although the pairing of Concrete poetry and Conceptual art has been 
disputed, this thesis argues that Concrete poetry and Conceptual art are connected 
and demonstrates how these international movements, which overlapped in the 
1960s, are analogous by examining previously overlooked points of convergence. 
The historical framework of the research is 1953 to 1980 – from the earliest use of 
the term ‘Concrete poetry’ through to a widespread return to painting and figurative 
art in 1980. The research study focuses on predominantly British concrete poets, 
conceptual artists, figures associated with either or both movements, and those that 
denied the title of concrete poet or conceptual artist but produced work with similar 
qualities to the work associated with these movements. A selection of American 
practitioners has also been included due to American art and literary influences on 
British practitioners at the time. These practitioners were part of a countercultural 
shift in the 1960s and the social, political, cultural (and economic) contexts within 
which these practitioners were working is taken into consideration when analysing 
their work and activities. This thesis presents the dematerialisation of the art object 
using language (in Conceptual art) and the materialisation of language (in Concrete 
poetry) as complementary. In the last twenty years, there has been an increase in 
the number of scholars from literary and/or artistic disciplines comparing Concrete 
poetry and Conceptual art and arguing for or against a connection between them. 
This research contributes to existing knowledge via an examination of the 
infrastructure of the art and literary worlds in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s (in 
particular, the cross-disciplinary spaces available to practitioners experimenting with 
Concrete poetry and Conceptual art), analyses of interactions between poets and 
artists which demonstrate that they were aware of each other and each other’s work, 
ideologies and theories, and an investigation into the role of poet-artists, intermedia 
or cross-disciplinary practitioners/figures, engaged with either or both movements, 
who blurred the boundaries between the visual arts and poetry. Overall, connections 
between Concrete poetry and (language-based) Conceptual art manifest as visual 
similarities, use of and an enthusiasm for the possibilities of language, interpersonal 
relationships and shared theoretical approaches, intermedia and interdisciplinary 
practices, poet/artist-run and institutional spaces, shared sources of funding, 
curation, collection and dissemination, and a reliance on the viewer/reader to 
interpret or ‘create’ the work.