Features of the Poetic

The starting point of Denise Ziegler’s mimetic practice lies in situations that contain some ordinary, unobserved human action that generally goes unnoticed or traces of the same. Ziegler’s term for such phenomena is ”undefinable gesture”, and she analyses their links to poetic expression. In a dialogue with Aristotle’s Poetics, Ziegler searches for concrete guidelines for artistic practice, thereby adapting the mechanisms of poetics into her own practice and more broadly into the field of conceptual contemporary art in general. She approaches Poetics from her personal perspective, that of a visual artist in Finland in the 21st century – not as an historian or a philosopher. This volume is the theoretical part of Ziegler’s doctoral demonstration of knowledge and skill for the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. The book is linked to is an exhibition held from 6 March – 31 March 2010 at the Kunsthalle in Helsinki. Denise Ziegler was born in Switzerland in 1965. She has lived in Helsinki since 1990.