This is an excerpt of a conversation between Véronique Bacchetta and Jacques Donguy at La Maison de la Poésie in Basel, Switzerland. The Maison de la Poésie is an independent space run by Betty Leirner. She has invited Véronique Bacchetta and Jacques Donguy to present their newest publications.

Véronique Bacchetta is director of the Centre d’édition contemporaine de Genève (prix Meret Oppenheim 2007). At the Maison, she and her guest Philippe Cuenat introduce “L’Effet Papillon”, a catalogue published by the Centre d’édition contemporaine. The title of the book is used as a metaphor for the free and uncontrolled propagation of ideas, and underline the recurring difficulty for an art space or an art exhibition being fully legitimised.

Jacques Donguy, author and essayist from Paris, presents “Poésies Expérimentales Zone Numérique 1953-2007”. “Donguy refers to experimental poetry as research on language, opposed to poetry that resumes and continues the inherited forms of the past. Central to his theory, he states a paradox: all avant-garde movements that constitute the true history of XXth century art were created by poets: Futurism by Marinetti, Dada Zurich by Tzara, Dada Berlin by Hausmann, the Ursonate by Schwitters, the russian Cubo-Futurism by Khlebnikov, Cobra by Dotremont, not leaving aside Duchamp and Cage’s strong influence on twentieth century art.
Basel, November 15, 2008.

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