Revolutie II
1972
Photography, 60 x 70 cm.
Materials: photo emulsion, canvas
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK3966).
Among the visual poems in which the limited typography of the typewriter has been relinquished in favour of a highly developed graphic elaboration of the text, one finds one of De Vree’s most famous poems, Revolutie II (1972). The letters are arranged in a circle and each letter is cut in half. The inner half has been shifted slightly to the right in relation to the outer half. This displacement of the word image yields a distorted visual pattern, which, precisely through its disruptive character, summarises the essence of a revolution. Both the word and the concept (break, shift, rotation) are turned into images.