Greta Schödl

Greta Schödl emerges as a trailblazing voice in poesia visiva (visual poetry), carving out a singular path in a field where women were strikingly underrepresented. Over six decades, she has developed a distinctive visual language, crafting compositions that blend myth, abstraction, and meticulous repetition. Letters and symbols recur obsessively in her works, transforming into abstract patterns that resonate with the methodical intensity of Hanne Darboven and the symbolic depth of Tomaso Binga. Schödl integrates geometric forms and striking signs with text, often enhanced with gold leaf or wire embroidery, and applies them across a wide array of surfaces—from handmade paper, books, and maps to intimate domestic objects such as ironing boards, pillowcases, and bed linens. This fusion of found materials with Old German script references both her Austrian roots and ancestral memory, while her performative works engage with contemporary Italian culture, exploring its symbols and societal stereotypes. By merging linguistic and visual elements, Schödl dissolves the original function of words and objects, reassigning them new significance and poetic resonance. Like her contemporary Li-Yuan Chia, who stayed with her in the early years of her career, her oeuvre questions social constructs of language, offering alternative modes of expression and interpretation that blur the line between reading and seeing. ...