Black Marks That Make up Letters

Language is typically thought to enable the speaker to be understood by others, and not just on the level of a phrase, a question, or an argument, but as a person. Of course, we are disabused of this notion by our daily interactions as well as by critics, philosophers, and poets, and yet we make use of the tools that we hold in common. The artists and writers who are participating in Black Marks That Make up Letters are interested in the inadequacies of language as well as the possibility of communicating—and representing oneself—differently through abstraction, through what the poet Dawn Lundy Martin calls “unrecognizable speech” in “A Bleeding, an Autobiographical Tale” (2007). This brand of speech counters “the tyranny of the prosaic, the beautiful, the poetic utopia,” and characterizes the work of black experimental poets from Amiri Baraka to Claudia Rankine. “Where does language go limp,” Martin asks, and where is it encountered merely as “black marks that make up letters?”

The limits and repercussions of conventional expression, especially for black people in the United States, are of particular concern for the exhibition “Speech/Acts,” which is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania and is the occasion for this event. “Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker,” writes James Baldwin in “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” (1979). “Language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to define the other—and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined by a language that has never been able to recognize him.” The exhibition asks how to refuse such a language, how to alter the reality that is constituted through language, how else to communicate (or refuse to disclose) the experience of blackness, and what kinds of responses might follow. This question will be addressed through brief readings and a discussion by Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Morgan Parker, and Simone White, all of whom are participating in “Speech/Acts,” and Meg Onli, the curator of the exhibition.

Black Marks That Make up Letters is organized in collaboration with the ICA and Futurepoem, which are copublishing the forthcoming “Speech/Acts” catalogue. The event is part of Triple Canopy’s Corrected Slogans series, which asks how conceptual strategies have transformed (and might still transform) conventional notions of expression and of reading—both as an exchange between an individual and text and as a public activation of the written word.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. In order to ensure that events are accessible and comfortable, we’ll open the doors at 6:30 p.m. and strictly limit admittance to our legal capacity. Please check Triple Canopy’s Facebook and Twitter accounts for updates, as we’ll indicate if events are sold out.

Triple Canopy’s venue is located at 264 Canal Street, 3W, near several Canal Street subway stations. Our floor is accessible by elevator (63" × 60" car, 31" door) and stairway. Due to the age and other characteristics of the building, our bathrooms are not ADA-accessible, though several such bathrooms are located nearby. If you have specific questions about access, please write at least three days before the event and we will make every effort to accommodate you.