When slid out from its elegant, understated slipcase, this leporello exuberantly unfolds into a lettered skyline resembling both cityscape and some larger, indeterminate word. Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist is known for his text based works, poetry, and readings, and an encounter with SKYLINE IS THE BY-LINEZZ affirms his repute. Switching between legible languages, outright word salad, and jumbles of numbers and punctuation, the text itself is exhilarating and funny, an effect amplified by its vociferous wordplay, sporadic dirty jokes, and occasional incomprehensibility. With just a little bit of distance, however, the text also coalesces into images and larger letters. A delight to peruse, behold, and handle close-up and when held at arm’s length or farther, SKYLINE IS THE BY-LINEZZ is a sophisticated and silly whirlwind of Dadaism and concrete poetry.
