Irma Blank's Writing Without Words at Museion Bolzano

Museion in Bolzano hosts a solo exhibition of Irma Blank (born 1934 in Celle, Germany), part of the 'Collezione studio' program focusing on works from the Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Paolo Della Grazia's collection now split between Mart and Museion. The show explores the relationship between image and word. Blank, an Italian by adoption who appeared at the last Venice Biennale, is often linked to visual poetry. Unlike Emilio Isgrò's cancellations, Blank's work lacks words entirely: it retains the structure of the page and the memory of letters and writing, but emptied of semantic meaning. The exhibited works come from two series: 'Trascrizioni' (since the early 1970s), featuring small ink marks or horizontal lines organized in formats referenced by titles like 'Notizie', 'Poema', 'Decreto'; and 'Radical Writings' (from the late 1980s), where writing is reduced to a single long horizontal blue brushstroke. Also on view are books by Blank and related artists: American Agnes Martin (shared subtle minimalism), Roman Opalka, and Hanne Darboven (writing as repetition and slow obsession). Curator Andreas Hapkemeyer notes that the Latin term 'exercitium' appears under the titles, recalling monastic exercises. The 'Trascrizioni' evoke the work of scribes—writing without narrative intent, an act of diligence and love for the 'book-form'. Blank's work is fully minimalist: it presents an object-object, a writing-writing that justifies itself alone, renouncing semantic meaning.