Lisa Robertson is a poet and essayist from Toronto who currently lives and works in France. She has published several poetry books, essays and reviews and has been a visiting poet, lecturer and artist-in-residence at various institutions. Robertson’s poetry is known for its subversive engagement with the classical traditions of Western poetry and philosophy. Her subject matter is varied, framing poetic genres and philosophy with concepts of gender and nation, nature and womanhood and utopian impulses, as well as art, architecture, food and astrology. In the mid-1980s, Robertson studied at Simon Fraser University and became involved with the Kootenay School of Writing, a Vancouver-based writing collective, before running Proprioception Books (1988-94). Robertson has taught at the University of California San Diego, Capilano College, Dartington College of Art, the California College of Art and the University of Cambridge. Robertson continues to be one of Canada’s most celebrated and internationally recognized poets.
2017, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
68 pp, softcover, limited edition (50 copies) letterpress book
$250 CAD
Written by Lisa Robertson
Edited by Lorna Brown and Jana Tyner
Designed by Derek Barnett, Information Office, Vancouver, BC
Printed by Peter Kruty Editions, Brooklyn, NY
Commissioned on the occasion of the exhibition Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (January 12 to April 8, 2018), Proverbs of a She-Dandy relates to Lisa Robertson’s work in progress, The Baudelaire Fractal, that explores the writer’s shared points of reference – “looking at Claude in the Louvre, reading Poe, smoking hash, relative impoverishment, affairs, dandyism.” Proverbs of a She-Dandy elaborates on a persistent theme in feminist art and literature over many past decades: a skeptical yet desirous exploration of the flâneur as a figure of agency for women. Robertson finds in Charles Baudelaire’s dandy a tangible presence for old women in public spaces. The book is comprised of Robertson’s remarkable translations of two poems by Baudelaire, her opening remarks to the reader and the rousing Proverbs. The placement of Proverbs in publicly accessible collections will ensure the posterity of this special edition.
With only ten copies remaining, Proverbs of a She-Dandy is now available for sale to the public. For a pdf version of the book, visit Proverbs of a She-Dandy.
Lisa Robertson is a poet and essayist from Toronto who currently lives and works in France. She has published several poetry books, essays and reviews and has been a visiting poet, lecturer and artist-in-residence at various institutions. Robertson’s poetry is known for its subversive engagement with the classical traditions of Western poetry and philosophy. Her subject matter is varied, framing poetic genres and philosophy with concepts of gender and nation, nature and womanhood and utopian impulses, as well as art, architecture, food and astrology. In the mid-1980s, Robertson studied at Simon Fraser University and became involved with the Kootenay School of Writing, a Vancouver-based writing collective, before running Proprioception Books (1988-94). Robertson has taught at the University of California San Diego, Capilano College, Dartington College of Art, the California College of Art and the University of Cambridge. Robertson continues to be one of Canada’s most celebrated and internationally recognized poets.
Once again, we are pleased to welcome the UBC Contemporary Players to the Belkin Art Gallery for a concert inspired by the exhibition Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT. Directed by UBC School of Music faculty Drs. Corey Hamm and Paolo Bortolussi, the UBC Contemporary Players ensemble includes graduate and undergraduate students focusing on music and performance of our time. Programs blend masterworks by internationally acclaimed composers with exciting world premieres of works written expressly for the ensemble by UBC composition majors.
[more]Celebrating the excessive abundance of the archive, Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT is concerned with language, depictions of the woman reader as an artistic genre and the potential of reading as performed resistance.
[more]Join us in the Gallery for a reading by poet and essayist Lisa Robertson, “The Baudelaire Fractal.” Robertson describes the subject thusly:
[more]