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Christopher Knowles: “Emily likes the TV” & “Do You Know My Wife Sylvia”

Thursday, Feb 20, 2020, 7 pm – 8 pm

Christopher Knowles’ (*1959) works capture and order everyday elements through repetition, abstraction and pattern formation. For the poet and painter, language is an essential part of his practice. Time becomes a landscape in his work, a visual pattern. Language is made physical, colours often refer to their iconic or political meaning.

In 1973, at the age of 13, Christopher Knowles recorded a long poem about his sister that repeated variations on a single line— “Emily likes the TV, because she watches the TV, because she likes it”. The audiotape with this poem marked the beginning of the collaboration between Knowles and avant-garde theatre director Robert Wilson who transcribed the text, and it was visually stunning: “If one looked at the piece of paper from far away, you could see the use of language was mathematical,” said Wilson. “There were patterns vertically, horizontally, diagonally.” At the Fridericianum, Christopher Knowles will perform Emily likes the TV as well as the new poem Do You Know My Wife Sylvia.

The performance will be presented in cooperation with the Kunstverein Langenhagen (Christopher Knowles: These are the days – February 19 –April 26, 2020, Kunstverein Langenhagen). Admission to the event is free.