AZ Art Weekly

500 Places at Once is an exhibition centering poet CAConrad that features a newly commissioned collection of three-dimensional poem  sculptures, along with a reading room with publications from  Fivehundred places, a small press established by the artist Jason Dodge.

The exhibition includes nine new poems by Conrad as revenant sculptures that curve and undulate on the page and in space, selected from the poet’s collection published this year Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return (Wave Books and UK Penguin Books).  Written from a place of somatic inquiry and rituals alongside animals  surviving in the anthropocene, Conrad states “my poems are breathing  wild creatures. They stand on the bottom of the page, vibrating in the  center of their bodies.” Their poem-sculptures are scaled to the body  and, collectively, resemble a forest or a gathering of mysterious  creatures. 

The reading room contains  publications from Fivehundred places, a press founded in 2012 by artist  Jason Dodge that runs a single printing of 500 copies by authors Eileen  Myles, Alice Notley, Dorothea Laksy, and more.

Exhibition programming is  co-presented with the University of Arizona Poetry Center. A poetry  reading will take place at MOCA Thursday, September 19th at 6pm. Conrad  will also lead workshops that focus on poetry, somatic practices, and  ritual; dates and details to be announced. 

500 Places at Once is organized by Laura Copelin, Deputy Director & Lead Curator with Alexis Wilkinson, Curator.

Exhibition partner is the University  of Arizona Poetry Center. Generous support for this exhibition is  provided by the Mellon Foundation; Arizona Commission on the Arts; and  MOCA Tucson’s Board of Trustees, Ambassador Council, and Members.

About the artist

CAConrad has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. Their latest book is Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return (Wave Books / UK Penguin Books 2024). They received the Ruth Lilly  Poetry Prize, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, a Creative Capital grant, a  Pew Fellowship, and a Lambda Award. The Book of Frank is now available  in 9 different languages, and they coedited SUPPLICATION: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books). They exhibit poems as art objects with recent solo shows  in Tucson, Arizona, as well as in Spain and Portugal. They teach at the  Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. Visit their website.

Fivehundred places was founded  in 2012 by Jason Dodge. With a single printing of 500 copies, each book  will find itself in one of 500 places. On the cover of each book is a  dead scissor by Paul Elliman.