Works by Michael Winkler (Michael Joseph Winkler, born 1952, Lima, Ohio) have been exhibited at: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; Kansas City Art Institute; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Aldrich Museum’s Soho Center Gallery, New York; King Stephen Museum, Hungary; Kassel Art Museum, Germany; Kaus Australis Foundation, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Academy of Fine Art, Poznan, Poland; Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas; Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College; and University of Pennsylvania’s Rosenwald Gallery (Survey of work from 1982 to 2004). New Arts Program presented a 1980-2017 Survey in 2017.
His ongoing project has taken form in a wide variety of media. Early explorations were presented as intermedia performances (a major work was featured at the New Music America Festival in 1987). Experimental books and manuscripts which were often acquired for the Special Collections of the libraries of art institutions were also produced. Collections: The Museum of Modern Art, New York (extensive collection of project documentation and early artist’s books–search via NYARC-Discovery); The Brooklyn Museum; King Stephen Museum, Hungary; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; India’s National Institute of Design; Getty Research Institute; as well as the Special Collections of academic libraries including: Yale University; Stanford University; Harvard University; University of Pennsylvania; Amherst College; University of Chicago; University of California at Santa Barbara; University of California at Los Angeles; Oberlin College; Ohio State University; Indiana University; University of Texas at Austin; Claremont Colleges; University of Washington; Boise State University; Virginia Commonwealth University; (search WorldCat.org: ‘Michael Winkler‘ or ‘Michael Joseph Winkler’; for info on access to work in Special Collections). A large number of drawings and other works from the 80’s and 90’s are included in the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Collection of Language-Based Art (University of Iowa). Corporate collections include Seybert and Rahier, Immenhausen, Germany (commission, 2013); Daimler Mercedes-Benz, Kassel, Germany (commission, 2015).
His interdisciplinary project has attracted support in the literary community. It was featured in the landmark anthology, IMAGINING LANGUAGE in the company of work by authors such as James Joyce, Victor Hugo, and Louis Braille (MIT Press; Ed: Rasula & McCaffery).
His work has also attracted a following in fields outside the arts. In the philosophy of language, it’s of interest because it questions the accepted idea that the signs of language are arbitrary (a foundation of linguistics and post-structuralist philosophy based on an assumption made a century ago). In relation to the philosophy of science, his presentation of the patterning of prime numbers in the “SignalGlyph Project” (A Net Art project presented in 2005 by Turbulence.org and North American Center for Interdisciplinary Poetics) points to a possible weakness in the formulaic language of mathematics–it demonstrates that the dimensional limitations of formulaic expression may make it incapable of describing some Natural phenomena (Philpeople.org/profiles/Michael-Joseph-Winkler). Researchers involved in attempting to uncover the origins of language also follow his project–the unintentional patterning of orthography echoes some features of early artifacts of the emergence of the symbolic mind (his work has been published by the Pleistocene Coalition).
Awards include: Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; a LINE II Association Book Award; and a Special Members Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers.
*Note to art collectors: Other than books, Michael Winkler’s work can only be acquired by institutions or for collections promised to institutions.
