• Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Professor Jerzy Kutnik welcomes guests to "Wordstruck."

“Wordstruck: American Artists as Readers, Writers & Literati,” at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University

May 13–16, 2015
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland

For many American artists—as diverse as Washington Allston, Marsden Hartley, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, and John Cage—writing was an essential art-making procedure, connected to other creative practices. By considering both artistic and utilitarian writings of American painters, this three-day symposium offers a literary perspective on the contribution of artists’ philosophical and aesthetic thought to the development of American culture and society. Organizers aim to challenge one stereotype that artists do not create new ideas but merely interpret, in visual form, those of others.

The entire symposium includes 13 sessions: six keynote lectures and 26 shorter presentations by scholars from Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. The embedded video features the symposium’s welcoming remarks—please click here to view all of the symposium sessions on YouTube.