M HKA Ensembles

Print, 6 x (450 x 450 mm).

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. M00160).

Published in 1969 by De Tafelronde in an edition of 50 copies, Verbaal Gelaat contains six silk-screen prints of several visual poems which De Vree had previously brought out in the collection Zimprovisaties (1968) and would later largely reissue in Poëzien (1971). The title Verbaal Gelaat is an allusion to an expression used by Richard Kostelanetz, ‘Imaged words – worded images’. The work consists of visual poems in which De Vree exploits the possibilities of typography and of means that are not purely linguistic, limited as yet to simple graphic elements such as lines and blocks of colour. However, his use of photographic material in the form of a collage clearly anticipates the direction of his later and more engaged work. Whereas full use is made of the typographic possibilities of the typewriter in De molen der contestatie, the latter is abandoned in Revolutie, (H)Owl and London in favour of a more radical graphic development of the word image. The granular grey tone of Waar zijn mijn hoofd… is reminiscent of newspaper photographs, while a photographic image is introduced in Amsterdam.