Event Blog 1: Black Mountain College

On Thursday, April 14th, I attended a poetry reading at the Hammer Museum. It was called “The Kinetics” and was part of a series of events that the Hammer has been putting on called Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College.

Black Mountain College was a liberal arts college founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The school was unique in that it placed its main educational emphasis on the study of art itself as part of a liberal arts education - students were required to study the arts upon attending this college. It ended up closing due to a lack of funding in 1957. The writers and artists that made up its faculty had great influences on the arts, and many of them are America’s leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers. 

At the event, four of the college’s literary descendants spoke of their experience at the college and then shared some of their colleagues’ poetry. The speakers included Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Duncan McNaughton, Michael Davidson, and Michael Palmer. The discussions of these four literary descendants touched on many of the ideas we are learning in class. For example, Black Mountain College itself exemplifies the idea of Two Cultures: the school was shut down simply because the study of arts is not as emphasized in our culture that is more and more dependent on science. Additionally, one of them mentioned that the poetry read at the reading is “poetry of place” - how you are in relation to those around you - this is poetics of the body. This relates to how our bodies are used to create art. Upon speaking about one of his colleagues, another speaker mentioned that their relationship was “of another dimension” - this reminded me of the “fourth dimension” discussed in our unit of mathematics and art.

Overall, I am glad I went to this event and listened to some poetry that I otherwise would not have been exposed to. I would recommend this event to anyone who wants to take a break from their busy schedule, slow down a bit, and contemplate the different meanings of words as others share their personal experiences. 

Sources:

Black Mountain College. 2008. North Carolina. Wikipedia. Photograph. 18 Apr. 2016.

"Black Mountain College." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.

Tan, Kamila. Hammer Pamphlets. Photograph, 2016. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Tan, Kamila. Thumbs Up with the Hammer Guy. Photograph, 2016. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Vesna,Victoria. “Lecture Part 2.” Math + Art. 12 Oct. 2012. Lecture.