Grammars of the Possible: When language becomes image, rhythm, and matter

What happens when words cease to function solely as carriers of meaning and become images, gestures, or objects? How can a letter, a symbol, or a repeated word communicate beyond the limits of language itself? These questions lie at the heart of Grammars of the Possible: Between Word and Sign, the group exhibition curated by Paolo Cortese and presented at Gramma_Epsilon Gallery.

Bringing together the work of Mirella Bentivoglio, Amelia Etlinger, Elisabetta Gut, and Greta Schödl, the exhibition explores four distinct approaches to the relationship between writing, image, and poetic expression. Although each artist developed a unique visual language, they were connected through artistic exchange, correspondence, friendship, and a shared commitment to visual poetry and experimental forms of communication.

Unknown alphabets, invented symbols, repeated words, artist books, and delicate poetic compositions made from textiles, feathers, and botanical elements reveal language as something far more fluid than a system of communication. In these works, writing becomes image, rhythm acquires material form, and poetry unfolds as a visual and spatial experience.

The exhibition also highlights the book as an expanded poetic medium through a selection of artist books and object-books by Bentivoglio, Gut, and Schödl. Here, language takes shape as structure, matter, and metaphor, inviting viewers to engage not only with what words mean, but with how they appear, resonate, and occupy space.

Rather than presenting visual poetry as a closed historical movement, Grammars of the Possible: Between Word and Sign proposes it as an open and transformative practice, where language exceeds its communicative function to become image, rhythm, matter, and relation.