Irma Blank

Irma Blank was a German-born Italian artist. Her work, based on printed text that she transcribed in ink, has been described as "drawing languages without words" and thus "a form of communication beyond specific language", including sounds.

Life and work

Blank was born in Celle, Lower Saxony. In 1955, age 20 and inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Italian Journey, she traveled to Syracuse, Sicily. Having made the decision to settle in Italy for good, Blank started working as a high school teacher, focusing on her own art at night. In 1973 Blank moved to Milan, where she met with the concrete poetry artists and introduced language into her prints and paintings. In the 1970s she initiated a long-standing collaboration with fellow artist Mirella Bentivoglio. Blank's technique in Trascrizioni, a cycle of works she started in 1973 and concluded in 1979, was to transcribe texts from printed material, such as newspapers, poetry and treatises, in black ink on transparent paper. During the process, she would "read" the material in monotonous sounds with her mouth closed, which she then recorded.
Although Blank's work was exhibited at Documenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 and the 38th Venice Biennale in 1978, her practice experienced a period of relative obscurity until it was reidiscovered and reappraised in the 2010s.
Blank wrote in 2001:
In 2017 Blank's work was exhibited at the 57th Venice Biennale. A travelling retrospective curated by Johana Carrier and Joana P. R. Neves. was staged at the in Lisbon and MAMCO in Geneva in 2019, at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, the CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo and the Bauhaus Foundation Tel Aviv in 2020, at the in Bellinzona, the Centre d'Art in Valencia in 2021, and at the ICA in Milan in 2021. An extensive monograph was published by Walther König in Cologne.
Blank died in Milan on 14 April 2023, at the age of 88.

Selected exhibitions

Blank's works have been presented in solo and group exhibitions, including:

1977: Metamorphosen des Buches, Documenta 6, Kassel
1978: Materializzazione del linguaggio, 38th Venice Biennale
1979: Sprachen jenseits von Dichtung,, Münster
1981: 16th São Paulo Art Biennial
1989: Konfrontation 1974–1989,
1992: Geteilte Bilder. Das Diptychon in der neuen Kunst. Museum Folkwang, Essen
1992: Kunstsache, Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf
1997: Augenzeugen, Die Sammlung Hanck, Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf
2010: Modernités plurielles de 1905 à 1970, Centre Pompidou, Paris
2011: Irma Blank & Silvie Defraoui: Writings Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venedig
2012: Le mie parole, e tu? Galleria dell'Incisione, Brescia
2013: Senza Parole P420
2017: 57th Venice Biennale
2019: Culturgest, Lisbon
2019: MAMCO, Geneva
2019: CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
2020: CCA Tel Aviv-Yafa
2020: Bauhaus Foundation Tel Aviv
2021: Bombas Gens|es Centre d'Art, Valencia
2021: ICA, Milan
2021: Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona