Heinz Gappmayr

Heinz Gappmayr (1925–2010) is considered one of the leading figures of visual poetry, to which he contributed numerous texts and writings on Concrete Poetry from the late 1960s onwards.

The basic material of Gappmayr’s work is language. He used letters, words, numbers, and occasionally lines and geometric shapes, presenting them visually to explore the categorical possibilities of language. In doing so, language is freed from its function as a bearer of meaning and becomes the very subject of the artwork.

Among visual and concrete poets, Gappmayr occupies a special position with his “one-word texts” and “number texts”. His use of language as a visual medium enables him to make abstract concepts perceptible.

A central theme in Gappmayr’s oeuvre is the representation of the categorical concepts of time and space, which themselves cannot be visualised but underlie all perception. The concept of time is realised visually, with sign and meaning appearing at first to be separate. The letters appear only in fragments—nowhere can the complete word be read—but in the time it takes to perceive and reconstruct the word, the viewer experiences the passage of “time”.