this bookfair is crazy for me. Apart from hosting & curating 2 guestland events on Monday & Friday my poetic-bureaucratic installation “Büro für überflüssige worte/Office of useless words” will be part of the renowed OPEN BOOKS festival. So If you have any words you don´t need anymore, don´t want anymore, any word-trash you want to get rid off…bring it to my office….sign & stamp it….and get a surprise word back.

Open Books I
Mi. 19.10 &  Do. 20.10.16, 16:30 – 21:30 Büro für überflüssige Worte, Kunstverein Frankfurt

Open Books II
Sat. 22.10., 15:30 – 21:30 Büro für überflüssige Worte, Schwanensaal, Römer, Frankfurt, Open Book Festival – Performance: “Deleted” 21 Uhr

HESSISCHES LITERATURFORUM at Mousonturm
WORTKÜSTEN UND SPRACHPOLDER:
NEW POETRY FROM FLANDERS AND THE NETHERLANDS
22.10.2016 – 7.30 pm Waldschmidtrasse 4 – Frankfurt am Main

Leonard Nolens (Fl), Elvis Peeters (FL), Rozalie Hirs (Nl), Rodaan al Galidi (NL/Irak), Anneke Brassinga (Nl) presented by Dirk Hülstrunk. Our special guest is the Flemish singer-songwriter Tijs Delbeke

Polyphony from a tight space: Dutch-language poetry. Resonant, lyrical, musical, playful, terse, absurd, multimedia, multiculture, rural, urban, biographic, universal, personal and political, classical and experimental. Five award-winning writers from Flanders and the Netherlands illustrate the great diversity in this tiny geographic area. Leonard Nolens has long been tipped for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Translater and poet Anneke Brassinga reflects existential experience in magical language. Iraqi refugee Rodaan al Galidi ranks as a leading voice in a new multicultural society. Rozalie Hirs is both a poet and a recognised composer who often works across media and borders. Erwin Mortier, poet, successful novelist, art critic and journalist, was the first Flemish winner of the coveted Dutch AKO prize for literature. Local writer and sound poet Dirk Hülstrunk will interview these Dutch-language writers and read the German translations. Huelstrunk, from Frankfurt/Main, is renowned internationally as a sound poet, spoken word poet, authors, lecturer, presenter and curator of art and literary events. The Flemish singer-songwriter and rock musician Tijs Delbeke will provide musical accompaniment.

one day before the official start of the bookfair I am proud to present this great sound poetry event:

Mo. 17.10., 19:30, Haus am Dom
Poezie klinkt anders – eine Hommage an 100 Jahre DADA.
mit Jaap Blonk (Arnheim), Maja Jantars (Ghent), Dirk Huelstrunk (Frankfurt)

same location, same day, 18:00 Opening of “Sprachaufzeichnung” Exhibition of Visual Poetry & Graphik Novel.

25 years of Germany reunification. 5 years of indepence for me. In Oct. 2011 I had quit my last regular job on a spontaneous notion with vague hopes to survive as a fully selfemployed artist with no security net. I was offically unemployed for 1 day, then I was suddenly my own business & my own boss. I was lucky to get a one year support for small businesses by the German government to start off. But I now realize I could not have survived without the help and support of my friends and artist collegues. I am extremly thankful to all of you!

Juha Valkeapää & me in Sysmä, Finland, 2011

True, I was also facing many obstacles. The biggest obstacle was my discomfort of seeing art as a business & being a boss to myself. It also means there is usually no one else to blame. You are completely responsible for all your decisions. Scary. And still I am not as well organized & disciplined as I should be. It was a big surprise to find out that beeing a “free artist” means you have to do a lot of non-artistic management work. Accounting is the worst for me since I was never a friend of numbers. My “creative space” now seems smaller than it had been before.

My incredible stage at Museo Vostell, Malpartida de Caceres, Spain, 2011

On the other hand I made so many great experiences, met new colleges in many different countries & some of them have become good friends. I was invited to far out places like India or Mexico & to my own surprise Finland had become the most important destination to me. Thanks to the late filmmaker & art curator Erkki Pirtola who died so unexpectedly this year.

The other surprise was that my art developed from poetry to intermedia art. I was able to perform, lecture & even teach in the fields of visual art, sound art, performance art, music & still feel as a poet.

Lecture-Performance at sfd, Vienna School of Poetry, 2013

And I should not forget to thank Poetry Slam that taught me so much about stage presence, poetic dynamics and respect for the audience.

They say that most new businesses fail after 3 years. So here I am – still alive. Cheers.

 On a field near Frankfurt – my first independent day Oct. 2011

Playing with words – the spoken word in artistic practice, ed. by Cathy Lane, CRISAP Institute, London 2010 is available again.

On of the best anthologies about working with spoken language in the current avantgarde. Contributions from Laurie Anderson to Pamela Z, also including my piece “Analfabet”

Playing with words was also a great live festival with selected artists from the book  (Jaap Blonk, Jörg Piringer, Nye Parry, Ansuman Biswas, Sianed Jones and myself). I had the pleasure to co-curate it with Cathy Lane. The whole festival was broadcasted by public radio “hr2 Kultur”. Sound Art label “gruenrekorder” published a double-CD of the book and a Video of the Festival.

Last year I recorded an electronic loop version of the old Dada soundpoem “Totenklage” (Litany) by Hugo Ball together with Jaromir Typlt in Prague.
This June we went second at the famous european Radio Art prize “Prix Palma Ars Acustica”. 
Our piece has been broadcasted by many european Radiostations like: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, SWR (Germany), RTE (Ireland), Cafe Sonore/ Concertzender (NL)Kunstradio Ö1(Austria), YLE (Finland)

After the premiere at Olohuone Art Festival in Turku, Finland, the “Office of dispensable words” came to the city library of Frankfurt, Mai 23rd – Mai 31st. Fluxus artist “Brandstifter” from Mainz is special guest at the final show on May 31st.

Performance me and Workshopclass at Bar Ö, Turku.