Valery Oisteanu
Valery Oisteanu is a poet, writer, and artist of the avant-garde. Born in USSR (1943) and educated in Romania. He debuted as a poet with the collection PROSTHESIS in 1970(Litera Press, Bucharest). At the age of 20, he adopted Dada and Surrealism as a philosophy of art and life and a few years later English as his primary language. Immigrating to New York City in 1972 he has been writing in English for the past 44 years. He is the author of 18 books of poetry a book of short fiction,” The King of Penguins” (Linear Art Press, 2000) and a book of essays (in progress): ”The AVANT-GODS. Two new books are just out: In the Blink of a Third Eye (Spuyten Duyvil Press NYC 2020) and Perks in Purgatory (translated in Romanian) Itaca Publishing Dublin 2020.
Over the last 10 years he wrote art criticism for Brooklyn Rail, artnet.com, Whitehot Magazine, and NY Arts. He is also a contributing writer for French, Spanish & Romanian art and literary magazines (La Page Blanche, Art.es, Viata Romanesca, Observatorul Cultural, Artout.ro, levurelitteraire.com, etc)
As an artist he exhibits collages and assemblages on a regular basis at galleries in New York and also creates collages as covers d illustrations for books and magazines.
He has performed in theater and in poetry-musical collaborations with jazz artists from all over the world in sessions known as Jazzoetry.
His work has appeared in international surrealist publications of the last four decades, including: Dream Helmet (1978), What Will Be (Brumes Blondes, 2014) Phala (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and The Annual (Phasm Press, 2015).
Memberships & Awards
Member of Poets and Writers, Inc., New York (1977-2020)
Founding Member of PASS (Poets and Artists Surrealist Society) 1977-2020
“It’s the End of the World as We Know It” Award (Vault Literary Society) 2000: Award for exceptional cutting edge artists who constantly take risks with their art.
Awarded Gold Chivot Order of the Chevalier of the Castel for the dissemination of Romanian Avant-Garde in Diaspora, 2010, Republic of Prose Readers, London.
Recipient of the Kathy Acker Award, NYC, 2013, for contribution to the American avant-garde in poetry performance.
2023 marks half a century since Valery Oisteanu has chosen New York City as his permanent home. This also marks the time he acquired a new language and a new family, marrying Ruth Friedman December 3, 1973.
The following five decades can be summarized in short as the crucial time until now in his life. The first four years were the most difficult in his journey of study and assimilation into a different lifestyle and adaptation to a new language and specifically to New York City slang. At this time, his studies included English as a Second Language at Columbia University and classes in creative writing at the same University in New York, where he attended courses with guest lecturer/writers: William Burroughs and J.L. Borges, among others. He also continued creative writing workshops of short fiction at The New School in NYC.
According to several published interviews, such as: Iolanda Malamen in Ziua, Bucharest, 21 Oct. 2002, “Dialogue from Surrealism to Zen Dada,” interview collage with Doru Ionescu (published in a book CDPL, 2019, Bucharest, Romania), and “Anarchy for a Rainy Day “in Rain Taxi (Vol.21 nr 1, Spring 2016, by Paul McRandall, Valery Oisteanu’s contribution reveals a steady evolution in his writing output in English language.
His first publications are contributions to small literary magazines such as those published by Bay Area Dadaists from San Francisco, Mele-Honolulu, Hawaii and Dream Helmet, New Jersey, 1979.
In 1977, he publishes his first poetry book in English, accompanied by collage illustration, titled Underground Shadows, by PASS Press, New York, a press created by a group of sympathizers of surrealism called Poets and Artists Surrealist Society. The book is accompanied by collage illustration seemingly unrelated to his poems, but, at the same time, a clear juxtaposition of ordinary and dreamlike delirious images that connect the poetry to the marvelous subconscious world.
His second book in English, Underwater Temples, appeared in 1979 and can be considered a bridge to the American surrealists to whom he sends his publications, among them, Philip Lamanthia in San Francisco, Julian Levy at SUNY Purchase and Charles Henri Ford, New York, all of whom responded positively at this unexpected poetry. Charles Henri Ford invited him to his apartment in the Dakota Building where he conducted a monthly reunion of artists and writers similarly sympathetic to surrealism, such as Charles Plymel, Ted Jones, Ray Johnson and Ira Cohen.
In 1978 his poetry was anthologized in The Magic of the Muse (A Treasury of Modern Poetry), Knoxville, Tennessee. Also VO started performing for downtown New York audiences at The Poetry Project, St. Marks Church, CUNY and La Mama. At the end of the 70s, he starts writing art journalism regularly in magazines such as Soho Arts Weekly, Cover Arts New York, the East Village Eye, NY Arts and The Voyeur (NYU).
In 1977, he becomes a member of Poets and Writers, Inc., an organization that helped with several grants for performances and publications in New York City. In that decade, he also participated in the New York City 12th and 13th Avant Garde Festival organized by Charlotte Morman. His performances were reviewed by Lee Sheridan in Valley Advocate, 1977, in which she writes “Valery Oisteanu’s ‘Surrearchy’ made a marriage between art and revolution in the form of poetry, action and manifestos.”
The next decade is marked by international travel and connecting to Avant Garde writers in France (Eugene Ionesco), Holland (Simon Vinkenoog, Hans Plomp and Lawrence Van Krevelen) and Italy (Sandro Dernini—Plexus, Mario Fioramanti—Night) and other surrealist groups in Europe. At that time, he collaborates with 88.9 WBAI-FM and hosts a radio syndicated column called Art Flash for New York and New Jersey AM radio.
In 1980, he curates an extensive show of Romanian contribution to Dadaism and Surrealism at Franklin Furnace, and several shows called The Grandma Moseses of the Underground and Solid Silver Survivors, 1982 at Buecker & Harpsichords in Soho, including artists such as Ray Johnson, Sari Dienes, May Wilson and Charles Henri Ford.
As a collagist, Valery Oisteanu was featured in John Digby’s “Collage Handbook” published by Thames & Hudson, 1985, which opened the possibility of exhibiting in New York and abroad his diary book collages he created since the 70s, over 40 handmade books, diary-collage & texts, and as such his artwork is now in many international permanent collections, and he also illustrated his writings with surrealist collages in over 18 published poetry & collage books.
At the same time, this decade opened new venues, internet magazines and that expands his participation online in www.respiro.org, artnet.com, EastVillage.com, and nycbigcitylit.com., among many others.
In 1982, he published his third book in English, Do Not Diffuse, PASS Press, New York, reviewed in The Poetry Project Newsletter.
In 1983, VO is visited by Gellu Naum from Romania, and organizes a poetry reading of surrealists in collaboration with the Poets and Artists Surrealist Society, with readings by Gellu Naum, Ira Cohen, accompanied on sitar by Ljubisha Ristic, and later visits Charles Henri Ford in Crete, organizing a reading with the surrealist group at The Poetry Project,
St. Marks Church, and numerous publications such as Nexus, Sideshows, Third Rail and Blues 10, etc
As a result of an unusual travel experience VO publishes a new book, his fourth: Vis-a-Vis Bali (New Observation Press, NYC, 1985) of poetry & photography received with critical acclaim.
In 1985, VO started lecturing on the anthropology of surrealism at the University of Connecticut, NYU, Parsons and CCNY-La Guardia, as a recognized authority on Dadaism and Surrealism and various forums in Europe on homegrown and historical Avant Garde.
Among other essays on art/literary writings, VO writes a column in High Times Magazine called “The Food of the Gods—Artists on Dope,” reviewing books written by French writers experimenting with narcotics.
In this period, he starts performances of original poetry accompanied by musicians titled Jazzoetry Session: with Ljubisha Ristic (guitar), Gabriel Caciula (Synthesizer), Otto von Ruggins (Yinthesizer) (Kongress), Von LMO, and others.
His 90’s decade is a prolific one with 4 major books published in succession: “Passport to Eternal Life,” (collages by John Evans, PASS Press 1990), “Moons of Venus,” (PASS Press 1992) and “Temporary Immortality,” (poetry and collage, PASS Press, 1995).
In 1999, a new book and a new publisher arrived on the landscape of creativity—Linear Art Press New York. The first book, entitled Zen Dada: Manifestos for the Third Millenium, delineates a fresh stage in his literary output. This stage is characteristic of new experimentations with language, creating performance texts that would be used in his Jazzoetry sessions, accompanied by Ken Simon on saxophone and Danny ???? on guitar, and close collaboration with The Living Theatre, Charles Henri Ford and post-Beat Generation poets such as Ira Cohen, Marty Metz and Janine Pommy Vega. The second book, titled The King of Penguins (Linear Arts Press, 2000) was a short fiction volume of selected stories, his first book of fiction in English.
The new millennium is ushered in by experiments in visual poetry and is mostly represented by collages, drawings, watercolors, photography and video created by V.O. in his extensive traveling anthropological research in Asia (Thailand, China, Indonesia, Singapore, etc.). At the end of that first decade a collection of poetry and collage was published by New York Fly By Night Press, a subsidiary of A Gathering of the Tribes, entitled Perks in Purgatory, 2009.
Also, the book was shown at the Whitney Museum in a reconstruction of Steve Cannon’s living room, and a performance of the poems at the museum in 2022. Later, that book was translated and published by a Diaspora Romanian press in Dublin and won the Best Poetry Book of 2020.
The next decade ushered in a new publisher, Spuyten Duyvil, a publisher unafraid to experiment with poetry and collage, and even hybrids of poetry, fiction and collage in the same volume. In this new publishing environment, Valery continued to publish several books of visual poetry, short fiction and poetry and collage, among them Anarchy for a Rainy Day (2015, poetry and collage), Lighter than Air (2017, vispo—visual poetry collages), and In the Blink of a Third Eye, (2020, hybrid poetry, short fiction and collage). Those books were also translated and published in Bucharest, Romania in 2019 and 2023.
The revolution in Romania December 1989 changed the zeitgeist of the oppressive communist regime into a more tolerant democratic governing of Romania and VO starts a reproachment with Romanian publications. His poems are translated and printed in Romania in literary magazines and books, among them a poetry selection titled: “Poems in Exile”, translated by the author, at Paralela, 45 Pitesti, 2000.
Since then, 2 more books were translated by Nadia Brunstein and published in Romania—Anarchy for a Rainy Day (CDPL, Bucharest 2019) and In the Blink of a Third Eye (MLNR Press, Bucharest 2023).
Also at this time, he was editing a five-part video series called Rhythms and Rituals in Bali, a documentary focused on dance, music and rituals of Bali art and culture that eventually was edited in Romanian language and presented on TVR1 in Bucharest.
His work also appeared in international surrealist publications including What Will Be (Brumes Blondes, Holland,2014), A Phala (2015, Sao Paulo, Brazil), The Annual (Phasm Press, New York, 2015), Peculiar Mormyrid (2018), Surrealist Outsider (2019) and Aspects Du Surrealisme International Aujourd’Hui (2020, Vocatif, France), Nigredo (Phasm Press, New York, 2022), Aerial Archipelago (Phasm Press, New York, 2023).
He is continuing his research and writing on arts for a future volume called The Avant-Gods, a compendium of art literary essays of less known and well-known Avant Garde artists and writers. Among the prizes that V.O. did not refuse are “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” Award (2000) (Vault Literary Society award for exceptional cutting edge artists who consistently take risks with their art, NY), GOLD CHIVOT Order of the Chevalier of the Tower, for the dissemination of Romanian Avant-Garde in Diaspora, 2010, Republic of Fiction Reader, London, England and the Kathy Acker Award NYC 2013 for contribution to the avant-garde in Poetry Performance.