Sweeter Than Honey

From the tongue-in-cheek compositions of Ed Ruscha to the lyrical poetry of Etel Adnan, the Written Art Collection is a symphony of language in visual arts across the past half century

Based in Germany, the Written Art Collection is dedicated to artistic positions that combine language, writing and image. Sweeter than Honey explores the phenomenon of writing and images with contributions on the history of written art, its political potential and current perspectives on calligraphy and typography. Beginning in the 1950s with Art Informel and gestural abstraction, the more than 100 works on display demonstrate the continuity of the significance of written art across generations and cultures. Artists invent imaginative alphabets and sign languages, write poems, quote from literature, or translate thoughts and conversations into spray-painted, graphic, gestural or embroidered messages. Artists include: Etel Adnan, Karel Appel, Sophie Calle, Andreas Gursky, Hans Hartung, Jenny Holzer, On Kawara, Franz Kline, Rachid Koraichi, Glenn Ligon, Brice Marden, Adam Pendleton, Qiu Zhijie, Walid Raad, Ed Ruscha, Kazuo Shiraga, Mark Tobey, Lawrence Weiner.