Poetry Reading Disrupts Patrick Staff's Acidic Exhibition at Serpentine Sackler Gallery

On February 7, 2020, London's Serpentine Sackler Gallery hosted THE SKY IS A GENIUS, a poetry event within Patrick Staff's exhibition On Venus. The artist selected poets Bhanu Kapil, Precious Okoyomon, and Nisha Ramayya as extraterrestrial guests for their influence on his work. Ramayya read from her 2019 debut collection States of the Body Produced by Love, specifically the section 'Sleeplessness'. Okoyomon performed 'Sky Song', quoting the late African-American poet Henry Dumas's 'Kef 12'. Kapil prefaced her reading with questions about poetry in unsurvivable conditions, referencing her 2015 book Ban en Banlieue. The exhibition featured rusted oil drums collecting acidic drips from ceiling pipes and a warped mirror floor. During the performance, Kapil dropped her book into one of the drums, creating a disruptive sound in the gallery space. Staff's central film work documented Venus as a toxic, volcanic planet similar to Earth. The event challenged conventional relationships between poetry and visual art installations.