Hanne Lippard – Pocket – Curated by Harry Burke for The Printed Room

Published anonymously in Geneva in 1764, Voltaire’s “Dictionnaire philosophique portatif” was perhaps the first pocket book of the Enlightenment. A little over 300 pages, it sought to economize the dominant encyclopedic form, for, its author claimed, “revolutionary material must be small enough for people to carry with them.”

The smartphone continues this project. Shaped not for the ear, but for more intimate spaces, it puts access to universal knowledge in the palm of one’s hand, and condenses the library into one’s pocket. Like the Enlightenment, its claim to democracy and revolution is founded in brutal, colonial extraction-rearticulated in its dependence upon discriminatory financial and material economies. We plunder pockets of resources. We burn holes in our pockets.

Glass sheets made speakers with surface transducers. Money, many, moans. Hearing the devices hearing us. Screens spleen. Butts dial. Avant-garde or derrière? Take your hands out your pockets. Speak up, reach out. Divest or die. The Printed Room at SALTS proudly presents “Pocket”, a solo exhibition by Hanne Lippard.

The Printed Room at SALTS, Basel, is dedicated to the exhibition value of literary and printed materials. Founded in 2013 by Quinn Latimer, since 2015 it has been curated by Harry Burke. Recent programming has given critical emphasis to the spatialization of text and the instability of the reading apparatus.

Hanne Lippard, born in 1984 in Milton Keynes, GB, lives and works in Berlin. Lippard’s practice explores the voice as a medium. Her education in graphic design informs how language can be visually powerful; her texts are visual, rhythmic, and performative rather than purely informative, and her work is conveyed through a variety of disciplines, which include short films, sound pieces, installations and performance. She has performed and exhibited at KW, Berlin (2017); ars viva (2016); Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2016); AUTOOFICE, *KURATOR, Rapperswil, CH (2016); Fluidity, Kunstverein, Hamburg, DE (2016); Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, DE (2016); 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); The Future of Memory, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2015); Transmediale, Berlin (2015); Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, DE (2015); Unge Kunstneres Samfund, Oslo (2014); Berliner Festspiele, Berlin (2013); Poesía en Voz, Mexico City (2012).

SALTS is kindly supported by Swisslos Basel-Landschaft, Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Stiftung Roldenfund.

With thanks to Office for Contemporary Art Norway for their generous support of this exhibition.

Gallery hours by appointment only, please call +41 79 372 81 75

www.salts.ch

Location:
SALTS
Hauptstrasse 12
4127 Birsfelden
Switzerland