In his debut collection, Some Trees (1956), the American poet John Ashbery poses a question that resonates across his oeuvre and much of modern art: 'How could he explain to them his prayer / that nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?' When Ashbery asks this strange question, he joins a host of transatlantic avant-gardists--from the Dadaists to the 1960s neo-avant-gardists and beyond--who have dreamed of turning art into nature, of creating art that would be 'valid solely on its own terms, in the way nature itself is valid, in the way a landscape--not its picture--is aesthetically...
In his debut collection, Some Trees (1956), the American poet John Ashbery poses a question that resonates across his oeuvre and much of mode...
