Alice Attie (born in 1950) is an American visual artist and published poet from New York City.

Education

After graduating from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in New York City with a degree in

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than Fr ...

, Attie obtained an MFA in poetry, studying under

June Jordan June Millicent Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was an American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist. In her writing she explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation. Jordan was passionate about using Black English i ...

at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. Attie went on to complete a PhD from the Graduate School of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

in comparative literature, with a

doctoral dissertation A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

focused on "modern

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

, specifically on the meeting place of language and the unspeakable: how we accommodate what is inaccessible to language".

Photography and visual art

Attie's drawing practice began as an exploration of literary texts, as the expanded inscriptions which they inspired. ''Class Notes'', ongoing, is a series of drawings composed during graduate philosophy and physics seminars at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Attie's class notes are taken in the form of drawings. Attie's drawing series ''Take Care of Yourself'', inspired by the lectures of

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

at the College de France, are writing-drawing abstractions formed by repetitions of the phrase "Take Care of Yourself", referencing the Socratic notion of care as it was addressed in Foucault's studies. Alice_Attie_art

Attie's recent photographs feature the meadows, parks, and fields of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

, and

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

. Taken with her father's old 1937

Rolleiflex Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei, Rollei-Werke. History The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's pr ...

camera, her photographs explore the idea of nature as visual poetry. Her photographic work and drawings on paper can be found in collections at

The Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, The

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

, The

Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Muse ...

, The

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...

in Los Angeles and The Museum of Fine Arts in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, among others. In 2001, Attie published ''Alice Attie: Harlem on the Verge'', (with introduction by historian Robin D. G. Kelley), a photography book of photo portraits and storefronts documenting modern-day

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

on the verge of

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

. In 2012, Attie collaborated with photographs in books by

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Lite ...

: ''Harlem'' and ''An Aesthetic Education in the Age of Globalization''. In 2012, Attie collaborated with philosopher

Giorgio Agamben Giorgio Agamben ( , ; born 22 April 1942) is an Italian philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception, form-of-life (borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein) and '' homo sacer''. The concept of biopolitics ( ...

contributing photographs to his book, ''The Church and the Kingdom''. Photographs of the artist

June Leaf June Leaf (born 1929) is an American artist known for her abstract allegorical paintings and drawings; she also works in modernist kinetic sculpture. She is based in New York City and Mabou, Nova Scotia. Biography June Leaf was born in 1929 ...

, taken over eighteen years, accompany images of June's drawings in the book Attie completed with

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him. Overview The company was started by Gerha ...

Press to accompany the 2016 Whitney Museum Exhibition: ''June Leaf: Thought is Infinite''.

Poetry

Attie's first volume of poetry, ''These Figures Lining the Hills'', was published by

Seagull Books Seagull Books is a publishing venture begun in Kolkata in 1982 by Naveen Kishore, a theater practitioner. It began primarily as a response to the growing need for an Indian publishing house for theater and the other arts and since then it has ...

in November 2015. ''These Figures Lining the Hills'' was inspired by a request from Naveen Kishore of Seagull Books: a call to "write about notes, notes that we write to ourselves, in journals, in notebooks, perhaps notes that we imagine writing, fragments of notes, notes in margins, and notes, perhaps, that are not written". Having kept a journal for almost 50 years, Attie culled from her recent notebooks. Attie's poetry book ''Under the Aleppo Sun'', 2018, with

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, is a collection of poems were inspired by her visit to

Aleppo, Syria )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

, the home of her grandparents, in March 2011, as the war in Syria was taking hold.

Influences

Attie studied under

while obtaining her MFA in poetry. She cites

George Oppen George Oppen (April 24, 1908 – July 7, 1984) was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism and moved to Mexico in 1950 to avoid the attentions o ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

, and recently,

Alice Oswald Alice Priscilla Lyle Oswald (née Keen; born 31 August 1966) is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second Poet ...

, as some of many poets who inspire her. She cites the works of the work of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

as formative to her work in literature and art. Like Kafka, she sees her work as a mediation between two worlds, one which could be articulated and another which hovered, above or outside, but never in the field of definition. Among her cherished books are: ''

To the Lighthouse ''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel ...

'' by

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

and ''

As I Lay Dying ''As I Lay Dying'' is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature.The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to Wor ...

'' by

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

and she keeps the Collected Poems of

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

on her nightstand or in her suitcase.

Exhibitions

* 2020 ''C19, Stones,'' ''Portraits of Ambiguity, Intensities, Abstractions,''
Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder
* 2018 ''Possibilities, Where are you?'' Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder * 2017 ''Where am I?'' Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder * 2016 ''Series Refugees, Silence'' Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder * 2014 ''Green Weather'' Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder * 2012 ''Physics'' Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder

References

Sources

Howard Greenberg Gallery
* Flaherty, Meghan.
Review: Harlem by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak & Alice Attie
Columbia Journal (2013)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Attie, Alice 1950 births Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists Artists from New York City Barnard College alumni City College of New York alumni City University of New York alumni