Serious Zen

Here’s a small section from Steve McCaffery’s 1970-1975 “multi-panel language environment” entitled Carnival:

You can check out the fully assembled version of this panel, as well as the 1967-1970 panel, here.

Attempting to transcend the boundaries of concrete poetry, McCaffery claims that the panel approaches the sacred by virtue of its mandala-like qualities. Of course, in perhaps typically postmodern fashion, he also draws attention to the panel’s artificial mode of production, noting that it is “largely an expression of language emerging into conflict and internecine statement conveyed in the variety of mechanical means of expression.”