April 5 & 19, 2019 6:00-9:00pm FREE at the Larry Wilson Gallery, Phoenix Center for the Arts Phoenix Center for the Arts is proud to present WonderLab: A Visual Poetics, an exhibition created by MFA students at Arizona State University. Students include: Maritza Estrada, Jabari Jawan Allen, Maria Woodson,Erin Noehre, Joel Salcido, Chelsea Liston, Elliot Winter, and Steven Abell, curated by Rashaad Thomas. The show will be open to the public on Friday, April 5 & 19, 2019 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, in the Larry Wilson Gallery, located within the Performing Arts Building at Phoenix Center for the Arts, 1202 N Third Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004. [The] WonderLab: A Visual Poetics, is the product of poets wondering about the possibilities and deficiencies of “text”. Through rigor and critical inquiry, this group of eight poets of varying identities and aesthetics are reconsidering what a text can be, how a poem can be “read”, how the emotional and intellectual landscapes of poetry can be rendered beyond the traditional “page”, how the imagistic, aural and textural resonances of poetics can be made visual. This exhibition is about questions. A SERIES OF QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS ABOUT ART AND POETICS These words have been crafted without you in mind. They are being read over you. Over your body. To prepare you. What is there to read here? Posture? The long movements of ritual? Tiny adjustments that cannot be concealed? Have you ever tried to touch a gathering, a play, a funeral? Which are its most untouchable parts? Is a funeral a kind art? Are we never supposed to touch art? Does touching art change it? Does touching it alter how we gather? Who’s allowed to sob loudly in a museum? The viewer? Certainly not. The artist? But isn’t the artist’s art the manifestation of a prior grief? Wouldn’t this person’s unrestrained outpourings of emotion be a spontaneous demonstration and need to be contained and given a thoughtful name and provided adequate time to promote? Surely it should not be permitted in the same venue? Isn’t there a massive conflict of interests? How many monuments have been born into us? When should we stop asking questions about gathering? If we’re reading this, our gaze is passing over the surface of a text. Our hearts are beating continually. The moment is gorgeous. It is so many things that we cannot touch. Or. Maybe it’s not even a thing at all.