here is a beautiful work in The Weight of Words, a show about the overlap between poetry and sculpture, that consists entirely of a single noun printed in grey on a page. “Stilllife” is the word – every letter, except for the first and the last, running together in a fence of shadowy verticals.
It alludes to the art of still life painting, of course, where drooping flowers are supposed to double as memento mori. But more than that, it speaks of life stilled to the point of death. The ashen colour is nearly fading away, and turns out to be the grey of something less vital than paint. Czech artist Pavel Büchler made this work in 2017 using only dust. A tiny filament stands just proud of the surface, turning the work into sculpture.
Words appear in art from first to last. They are so common on public monuments in particular, from classical statues to Maya Lin’s Vietnam veterans’ memorial, its roll call of the dead multiplying into the black-granite distance, as to seem almost unexceptional. But very few sculptures are specifically concerned with – or composed of – words. This exhibition, at the ever-innovative Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, gathers works by 18 contemporary artists that ponder the written and spoken word to fascinating, curious and occasionally bewildering effect.
