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The solitary surrealism of Gertrude Abercrombie
03.20.2020
05:44 am
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A now all-too-relatable painting by Gertrude Abercrombie, “Woman in a crumbling cell,” 1949.
 
By the time she was five, Gertrude Abercrombie had already lived in Austin, Texas (her birthplace), Berlin, Germany, and then Aledo, Illinois. Two short years later, the family of three would finally settle down in Chicago, a place Gertrude would spend the majority of her life.

Though still quite young, Abercrombie developed a keen interest in linguistics during the family’s time in Berlin, where Gertrude had become fluent in German. Additionally, Abercrombie’s parents were part of a traveling opera company, and Gertrude would also develop her musical chops as a vocalist with a penchant for jazz. Her formal education included earning a degree in Romance Languages from the University of Illinois (1925), then later exploring her artistic yearnings with commercial art courses at the School of the Art Institute and a brief stint at American Academy for Art in Chicago. She would then pursue a career in art after finding a job as a department store commercial artist. These endeavors would convince Abercrombie she should focus full time on developing her painting skills, which she did starting in 1932 at the age of 22. One year later, she became a part of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The PWAP was launched during the Great Depression as a way to help support artists by engaging their services to decorate public dwellings. Paid anywhere between $38-$46.50 a week, Abercrombie was one of nearly four thousand artists that collectively created 15,663 pieces of artwork based on images associated with the “American scene” (think Grant Wood’s 1930 painting “American Gothic”). Gertrude was empowered by her inclusion in the PWAP, and this sense of inclusion with her peers would help inspire the young artist to further develop her style.

Success would come reasonably quickly for Abercrombie, and by the early 40s, she was the toast of New York after her first solo show in the city. Gertrude would return to Chicago and hold a show at the Art Institute’s Chicago Room, after which she would be referred to as “the queen of the bohemian artists” and the “Queen of Chicago.” Her solitary style of surrealism often included lonely self-portraits and nocturnal images of cats and owls. A quote attributed to Abercrombie shed some light on the starkly beautiful visions of the artist and how she came to create them:

“I am not interested in complicated things nor in the commonplace, I like to paint simple things that are a little strange. My work comes directly from my inner consciousness, and it must come easily.”

When Abercrombie wasn’t painting, she was busy hanging out with luminaries of the jazz scene like Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn, and Sonny Rollins. To say the least, her life was busy, if not chaotic, and she would struggle with vice – like many of her famous friends—specifically alcohol. In contrast to her life, her paintings depict calming, isolating scenes, many of which were conjured from her memories as a child growing up surrounded by the landscape of Aledo, Illinois. As we are all spending a lot more time alone right now, I found Abercrombie’s paintings somewhat comforting and very relatable. I hope you do too.
 

“Strange Shadows (Shadow and Substance),” 1950.
 

“Flight,” 1946.
 

“The Stroll,” 1943.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.20.2020
05:44 am
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Gábor Urbán’s cataclysmic artwork will prepare you for the end of the world
12.30.2019
07:05 am
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A self-portrait by Gábor Urbán.
 
At the age of eighteen, Gábor Urbán began his studies in painting at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. He would also explore the craft under the tutelage of successful painter Árpad G. Balázs. After spending nearly two decades perfecting his surrealist style of painting, Urbán was able to support himself as a freelance artist starting in the early 1980s. In the wake of the ethnic conflicts arising in the region as the Yugoslav Wars were beginning their various decade-long clashes, Urbán would leave Serbia in defiance of the conflicts and unwillingness to participate in it as a soldier.

He would travel to nearby Hungary, though he also spent much of his time away from Serbia on an island located in the Adriatic Sea, Hvar. Living up to his motto, “Not a day without a line,” Urbán would continue to paint, inspired by his stunning surroundings, such as the lavender fields of Hvar and the ocean. Another recurring subject in Urbán’s work are wild horses often painted into phantasmagorical situations, just like the humans who become a part of his swirling, surreal universe. And as I’m on the topic of phantasmagorical situations, Urbán is also known for his apocalyptic visions of what the future may hold for mankind. Using a similar color scheme in each, Urbán would paint 20+ examples of his lush nudes in end-of-times scenarios, including crucifixions, rapture-esque demises including the devil, and warnings about the effects of consumerism on our very souls. While his imagery with these specific works is pulsing with surrealism, Urbán also shows great skill in his ability to capture the essence of the old masters as well as incorporating aspects of Greek mythology into his work.

Now in his early 70s, Urbán has been struggling to complete his “life’s work” due to an undisclosed medical condition. In 2016 an Indiegogo site was launched to help raise funds for the painter to help him finish five to eight paintings. Unfortunately, the page is no longer fundraising, and the rather private Gábor, who splits his time living in Serbia and Hungary, has not provided any updates as to his progress or condition. In light of this revelation, I’m happy to shine a very bright light on Urbán’s darker works in the hope it will create more awareness of this incredibly talented artist. Most, if not all, are NSFW.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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12.30.2019
07:05 am
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The haunting surrealism of Victor Brauner
06.27.2018
08:47 am
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“The Last Trip” by Victor Brauner 1937.
 
Born in Romania, Victor Brauner was a significant player in the art world in the early 20th century publishing the avant-garde magazine 75HP in Bucharest in 1924 when he was 21. After heading to Paris for a short time, he met another young Surrealist, Yves Tanguy. Tanguy was already deeply involved with Surrealism, and his work had been shown in group exhibitions along with Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and many other influential creatives not only in Paris but New York, London, and Brussels. Tanguy would introduce his new friend to the Surrealist circle in Paris in 1933. A year later, the leader of the Surrealist movement in Paris, André Breton wrote a glowing introduction for Brauner in honor of his first solo show in the city. Although the Parisian Surrealist community dug Brauner, the reviews for his fledgling show were disparaging, and Brauner moved back to Bucharest to try to sort things out.

Brauner returned to Paris in 1938 where he would experience an incident thought by some to have been foreseen by the artist for several years. If you are familiar with Surrealism’s ethos, then you understand at its core it embraces the concept of tapping into the subconscious mind without restriction in order to create. Setting his unconscious mind free was not difficult for Brauner and his work is full of complexity, warped configurations of people, and perhaps a prophecy concerning his own eyes. Eyes were a widely recurring theme in Brauner’s work, appearing regularly in his paintings as early as 1931 when he painted a self-portrait of himself with his right eye gouged out. Seven years later Brauner would have a run-in at a bar with Spanish artist Óscar Domínguez trying to defend his friend, another Spanish Surrealist, Esteban Francés. In a drunken rage, Domínguez hurled a glass at Esteban. Brauner threw himself in front of his friend and the glass collided with his left eye, ripping it from its socket
 

“Self-portrait” 1931.
 
Just before the outbreak of WWII Brauner ended up in Switzerland after deciding not to re-apply for citizenship—a new requirement for all Jews living in France. This was a good move considering what was to come, and the fact Brauner painted a fantastically unflattering portrait of Hitler in 1934 made it all the more so. Following the end of WWII Brauner went back to Paris where he would continue to work until his death in 1966. Images of Brauner’s work including an odd piece of taxidermy he created in 1939 called “Loup-table” (or “Wolf-Table”) inspired by two of his paintings done the same year, “Fascination” and “Psychological Space” depicting an angry wolf incorporated into a table, follow.
 

“Suicide at Dawn” 1931.
 

“Chimera” 1939.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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06.27.2018
08:47 am
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‘Europe after the Rain,’ classic documentary on Dada and Surrealism
05.03.2018
10:14 am
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‘Portrait of Andre Breton’ by Man Ray, c. 1930
 
Europe after the Rain, the Arts Council of Great Britain’s 1978 documentary on Dada and Surrealism, looks at the careers of André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dalí, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Yves Tanguy, John Heartfield, Giorgio de Chirico, Francis Picabia and René Magritte, among others. Sure, there are better ways to see these artists’ work than on YouTube, but this film is worth watching, because it makes both movements’ commitment to revolutionary left-wing politics explicit as few other surveys do.

Take this list from 1919, drawn up by Richard Huelsenbeck and Raoul Hausmann on behalf of the Dadaist Revolutionary Central Council:

Dadaism demands:

1) The international revolutionary union of all creative and intellectual men and women on the basis of radical Communism;
2) The introduction of progressive unemployment through comprehensive mechanization of every field of activity. Only by unemployment does it become possible for the individual to achieve certainty as to the truth of life and finally become accustomed to experience;
3) The immediate expropriation of property (socialization) and the communal feeding of all; further, the erection of cities of light, and gardens which will belong to society as a whole and prepare man for a state of freedom.

(The full manifesto goes on to demand free meals on Potsdamer Platz for “all creative and intellectual men and women,” the requisition of churches, “immediate organization of a Dadaist propaganda campaign with 150 circuses for the enlightenment of the proletariat,” and “immediate regulation of all sexual relations according to the views of international Dadaism through establishment of a Dadaist sexual center.”)
 

‘Europe after the Rain II’ by Max Ernst, 1940-1942
 
The movie is full of treasures: BBC interviews with Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp from the Sixties, a reading of Artaud’s “Address to the Dalai Lama,” an account of Freud’s meeting with Dalí. As usual in a film of this type, the attempts to dramatically recreate speeches by historical figures are embarrassing. I am not extra fond of the portrayal of Tzara as a supercilious toff. But the re-enactment of Breton’s dialogue with an official of the Parti communiste français is illuminating, and complements the other valuable material on the “Pope of Surrealism”: his work with shell-shocked soldiers in World War I, trials and expulsions of other Surrealists, collaboration with Leon Trotsky in Mexico, less-than-heroic contributions to the French Resistance, and study of the occult.

A VHS rip of the movie has been up on YouTube for some time, but this sharpened upload only recently appeared through the good offices of Manufacturing Intellect. It’s worth noting that the original VHS rip is nearly six minutes longer.
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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05.03.2018
10:14 am
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Occult paintings and mystical visions of female surrealist Ithell Colquhoun
06.21.2017
11:00 am
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Like the Abstract Expressionist movement that followed in its wake, Surrealism’s history has largely been written as a narrative of heroic transgressions committed by bad boys, which did no favors for the women involved in the movement. Even Surrealism’s most celebrated woman artists—Meret Oppenheim, whose “Breakfast in Fur” was the first objet acquired by MoMA, and Lee Miller, who moved on from Surrealism to become a celebrated photojournalist—are arguably as well or even better known as nude models for photos by Man Ray as for their own achievements.

Not only was that at work in ensuring that painter/poet Ithell Colquhoun remained an obscure figure, there’s her strong supernatural bent. Surrealism’s interest in automatism in writing and drawing was held in service of suppressing the discipline of the conscious mind in order to develop the unconscious, triggering creativity-enhancing states. But Colquhoun used Surrealism’s methods in service of Hermeticism. She sought not merely the unconscious, but the mystical and transcendent. This pursuit led to her ouster from the official English Surrealist group in 1940. She continued to paint, eschewing her early representational style in favor of increasing automatism, and she increased her involvement in the occult, participating in the Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Golden Dawn splinter group Stella Matutina.

Colquhoun’s biography and body of work merit far deeper exploration than I can offer here, and I’d strongly encourage anyone interested in Surrealism or esoteric art who don’t already know her to engage in that deep dive. The video at the very end of this post isn’t a terrible place to start. What concerns us today is a suite of her paintings and connected esoteric poetic writings called Decad of Intelligence. Based on an early Kabbalistic treatise known as the Sefer Yetzirah, the ten painting/writing pairs were created in 1978 and 1979, based on ten “Sephiroth,” aspects of infinity revealed in creation. The Decad has been published in full for the first time as an extraordinary set of prints and an accompanying book by Fulgur Limited, a UK publisher concerned with the intersections between the esoteric and visual art (if you’re familiar with Abraxas Journal, you know Fulgur). From Dr Amy Hale’s introduction:

A key to understanding the way in which the Decad was designed to work may be found in Colquhoun’s relationship to colour theory, in which she was interested from early in her formal arts training. In the 1930s she studied at the London atelier of Amédée Ozenfant, who spearheaded scientific colour theory in Britain, particularly concentrated on the effects of colour in architecture. Colquhoun’s own studies of colour theory were underpinned by her interest in the Golden Dawn magical system and reinforced for her the idea that colours hold the power to communicate both concrete and more ineffable spiritual principles. Similarly to the theories put forward by Kandinsky in his 1911 text Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Colquhoun believed that colours were themselves intelligences and gateways to other planes of existence.

The Decad of Intelligence…was designed to be a small book of ten enamel pieces, each depicting a different sephira, accompanied by a description of their properties. The enamel is thickly laid on the paper, and each piece is a colour study, encompassing the colours of each of the four colour scales of the Tree of Life. Her text is extremely regular in construction, and provides a list of of the correspondences of each sephira, including its location, corresponding part of the body, elemental and planetary associations, fragrances and flowers, alchemical associations, and the vision that the sephira is intended to inspire.

The prints in the folio are quite vivid, printed with metallic highlights that help to capture the essence of the enamel originals. The versions of the same works in the booklet are still quite nice, but less expensively printed, and the digital images we have to share with you resemble the latter more closely. They give you the idea quite well enough. Elements of the corresponding poems were derived from information found in Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777, and perhaps accordingly, the Decad of Intelligence is limited to 777 copies.
 

 
ABSOLUTE OR PERFECT INTELLIGENCE

Sphere of Mercury
Pillar of Water
Splendour a Hermaphrodite

Opal storax moly
Quicksilver mescal
Left foot navel
The names versicles and apron octagram
Zinc Venus as metal

Jackal of the west healer of plagues
Truthfulness angelic Sons of God
Analysis into Four Elements vision of splendour
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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06.21.2017
11:00 am
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The photographs of pioneering Japanese surrealist Kansuke Yamamoto
01.23.2017
01:01 pm
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A photograph by Kansuke Yamamoto, 1950.
 
Future photographer Kansuke Yamamoto’s father, Goro Yamamoto, was a talented photographer himself. The elder Yamamoto had an affinity for “Pictorialism,” or the artistic practice of distorting or manipulating a photograph in perhaps a painterly manner. Yamamoto didn’t initially follow in his father’s footsteps when it came to photography, and preferred to spend his young years writing poetry. At the age of seventeen Kansuke relocated from his birthplace of Nagoya to bustling Tokyo to pursue studies in French Literature at Meiji University. Already a huge fan of surrealist-style poetry, at this time it is very likely that the young artist first saw the various surrealist works of art that had just started to make their way to museums and galleries in Japan. Inspired by what was happening around him he would quickly become the co-founder of the Dokuritsu Shashin Kenkyukai or “Independent Photography Research Association.” The organization was formed due to the disdain many Japanese-based photographers had for the limitations of Pictorialism. The group’s magazine Dokuritsu (or “Independent”) would be the first publication to showcase the young Yamamoto’s photographic works.

It is important to note that the artists who produced surrealist-style work during this time were routinely persecuted by the Japanese government and ran the risk of jail and imprisonment if they were deemed annoying enough by the authorities. Despite this, Yamamoto had already fallen under the spell of surrealism and it would become his artistic calling card for the rest of his life. When Japan removed itself from the League of Nations in 1933, harsh rules such as the “Peace Preservation” laws were put in place. If you’ve ever heard the term “Thought Police” used before, its origins can be traced back to this time in Japan as this moniker was used to describe the law enforcement, or the “Tokko,” whose members worked tirelessly to remove freedom of the press, free speech, and free assembly. Undaunted and unafraid of the consequences, Yamamoto and others would carry on.

Until his death in 1987 at the age of 73, Yamamoto would form many more surrealist-based groups and became a mentor and inspiration to aspiring artists who were members of the Chubu Photography Federation of Students. Much of Yamamoto’s work is included in the 2013 book Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto. I’ve included examples from Yamamoto’s vast body of work dating from 1932 to 1970 below. Some are gorgeously NSFW.
 

Self-portrait, 1950.
 

‘Stapled Flesh,’ 1949.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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01.23.2017
01:01 pm
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From Russia with drugs: The twisted erotic surrealism of Dmitry Vorsin
07.18.2016
02:27 pm
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A creation of artist Dmitry Vorsin.
 
According to Australian art collective beinArt the Surrealist responsible for the provacative Dali-esque creations in this post is Russian artist Dmitry Vorsin—a 36-year-old based in Moscow.

Though Vorsin originally set his sights on studying ecology when he enrolled in college he decided instead to pursue art—a passion that began when he was a child. The self-taught Vorsin uses ink, pencils and watercolors to weave his distorted figures that contain elements and images inspired by Renaissance-era paintings. Vorsin’s work was included in a fantastic looking book put out by beinArt in 2011 Metamorphosis: Volume 2: 50 Contemporary Surreal, Fantastic and Visionary Artists along with other modern masters of the surreal such as Shawn Barber, Travis Louie, Paul Booth and Swiss surrealist, the late, great HR Giger.

If you are digging on Dmitry like I am, I highly recommend you keep up with the prolific artist over on his Facebook page. A selection of Dmitry Vorsin’s avant-garde creations follow. Many are delightfully NSFW.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.18.2016
02:27 pm
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Naughty nuns, Nosferatu and BDSM: Surreal works by the master of ‘anything goes’ Clovis Trouille
07.01.2016
10:58 am
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‘Religieuse italienne fumant la cigarette’ (Italian nun smoking a cigarette) by Clovis Trouille, 1944.
 
According to legend a work called “Remembrance” (1930) by fanatical anarchist and painter Clovis Trouille was on display during an art show for the French Communist Party in the early 1930s the piece caught the eye of none other than Salvador Dali himself. Which makes perfect sense as the painting (pictured below) features a church cardinal wearing an open coat that reveals his womanly legs, red garter belts and black thigh-high stockings—to say nothing of the levitating nude contortionist just to his left. Fantastic stuff.
 

‘Remembrance’ 1930.
 
“Remembrance” was one Trouille’s first paintings—done when the painter was already 41 years old. Prior to discovering his true calling, Trouille was employed as what could be best described as a sort of mannequin “makeup” artist for department stores. A job that allowed him to stay true to his anti-establishment ideology and disdain for anything systematic—a sentiment that Trouille instantly developed after he was drafted into service during WW1 and returned traumatized by what he had seen. During his long career Trouille would continue to admonish authority figures by way of his brush by painting religious leaders, police and government officials into sordid scenes full of lowbrow debauchery with distinct BDSM undertones.

Quite fond of his own work, according to noted French surrealist art collector Daniel Filipacchi, Trouille once asked him to return a painting he had purchased from him “Rêve Claustral” that featured two nuns kissing. To which Filipacchi though confused, obliged. The painter would return the painting to him noting that he had added some detail to it (in this case Trouille added two prayer books that had been cast on the ground below the nuns exposed legs). This was a request, Filipacchi said, that would be asked of the collector on several other occasions resulting in a few other additions to “Rêve Claustral” including a peeping-Tom version of a nun watching the lurid scene go down.

Trouille was tragically overlooked during his own lifetime and if you’re going to be in Paris this coming week, you can see some of his work at the Grand Palais at the Champs-Élysées through July 4th. If you like what you see, Trouille’s art has been compiled into a few books including “Parcours à Travers l’oeuvre de Clovis Trouille, 1889-1975” and “Clovis Trouille; Un Peintre Libre et Iconoclaste.”
 

One of the most famous paintings by Clovis Trouille provided the title and poster art for Kenneth Tynan’s notorious erotic Off-Broadway revue ‘Oh! Calcutta!’ (The title is a pun on “O quel cul t’as!” French for “What an ass you have!”). It was also used on the cover of the original cast soundtrack album.
 

More spellbinding examples of Trouille’s work follow after the jump—most are NSFW…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.01.2016
10:58 am
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When Dali Met Harpo: Read Salvador Dali’s script for the Marx Brothers

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Salvador Dali loved the Marx Brothers. He loved their madcap, anarchic comedy. In particular Dali loved Harpo Marx—the blonde corkscrew-haired comic mime whose visual comedy—unlike the quick witty repartee of his brother Groucho—was universal and needed no translation. Dali described Harpo as one of America’s three great Surrealists—the other two being Walt Disney and Cecil B. DeMille.

The pair first met at a party in Paris in 1936. Harpo told Dali how much he liked his paintings. Dali told Harpo how much he loved his films—in particular Animal Crackers which he described as “the summit of the evolution of comic cinema.” Dali gushed over Harpo’s performance where he pulled fish and cutlery from his pocket and shot the hats of beautiful women—this was true Surrealism!

Understandably, the two men became friends.

Dali later wrote “an entertaining, if rather implausible account” of his meeting with Harpo for Harper’s Bazaar in 1937:

I met Harpo for the first time in his garden. He was naked, crowned with roses, and in the center of a veritable forest of harps (he was surrounded by at least five hundred harps). He was caressing, like a new Leda, a dazzling white swan, and feeding it a statue of the Venus de Milo made of cheese, which he grated against the strings of the nearest harp. An almost springlike breeze drew a curious murmur from the harp forest. In Harpo’s pupils glows the same spectral light to be observed in Picasso’s.

When Harpo returned to America, Dali sent him a harp wrapped in cellophane with barbed wire for strings and spoons, knives and forks glued all over its frame. In return Harpo sent Dali a photograph of himself playing the harp with bandaged fingers. He invited Dali to Hollywood saying he’d be more than happy to pose for the great artist—if he cared to smear paint all over him. Dali was delighted to take up the offer. In 1937, he arrived in Hollywood with his wife Gala. He visited Harpo and sketched him playing his barbed wire harp with a lobster on his head. Natch.
 
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Dali’s sketch of Harpo playing the harp.
 
Dali brought Harpo a gift—a movie script he wanted the Marx Brothers to make. The script was called Giraffes on Horseback Salads or The Surrealist Woman. It was a series of unconnected scenes typed in blue ribbon over twenty-two pages with various notes written in ink. Dali had already made two infamous films with his friend the director Luis Buñuel—Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’Age d’Or. Now he wanted to cast Harpo and cinema’s “greatest Surrealist act” the Marx Brothers in a film that just might revolutionize Hollywood—or maybe not...

Read Dali’s script and see his sketches for ‘Giraffes on Horseback Salads,’ after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.15.2016
11:01 am
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‘The Silence of the Angel’: Paul Klee’s notebooks are now online

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“Art,” Paul Klee (1879-1940) once observed, “does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.” It’s a fair description of Klee’s rich and diverse body of artworks produced during his forty year career. Just looking at his phenomenal output of some 10,000 artworks tells a fairly accurate history of Modern Art, as Klee adopted, studied then discarded the ideas and forms of the twentieth century’s major artistic movements—Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction and the Bauhaus school.

Klee became a great artist, and was also a poet, writer, composer and musician, but he could have been just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill traditional painter had he not had a startling epiphany in his early twenties, circa 1900. He was studying painting under artist Franz von Stuck in Germany. Klee excelled at drawing but was deeply frustrated and dissatisfied by his lack of aptitude as a painter. He felt unable to express himself, to move beyond mere reproduction. One day, he was browsing through his old belongings in the attic when he chanced upon paintings he had made as a child. There in front of him was what he was desperately trying to achieve—immediacy, vibrancy, and color.

Klee later wrote:

Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age.

It changed his approach to painting and so began the career of one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists.
 
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‘Steps’ (1929).
 
Everyone’s seen a Klee painting—they’re forever appearing on greeting cards or postcards or posters. His work is ubiquitous because he kept developing and changing as an artist while maintaining a very personal vision. When collected together in a gallery, the variety and power of each of his paintings demands close attention “like reading a book or a musical score.”
 
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‘Park near Lu’ (1938).
 
During his life, Klee wrote down his theories and ideas about art in various notebooks.  In particular two volumes of lectures he gave at the Bauhaus gymnasiums during the 1920s—The Thinking Eye and The Nature of Nature—are “considered so important for understanding Modern Art that they are compared to the importance that Leonardo’s A Treatise on Painting had for the Renaissance.”
 
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Pages from the ‘The Thinking Eye.’
 
If that wasn’t grand enough of blurb for a book jacket, the renowned art critic, anarchist and thinker Herbert Read (1893-1968) declared Klee’s notebooks as:

...the most complete presentation of the principles of design ever made by a modern artist – it constitutes the Principia Aesthetica of a new era of art, in which Klee occupies a position comparable to Newton’s in the realm of physics.

The reason these notebooks are so valuable is perhaps best described by Klee himself who claimed when he came to be a teacher he had “to account explicitly for what I had been used to doing unconsciously.”

More after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.03.2016
11:18 am
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From slicing eyeballs to making the perfect Martini: The Life and Times of Luis Buñuel
03.12.2015
11:49 am
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The most famous short film ever made was inspired by dreams. Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali had talked about making a film together for some time but could never agree on what the film should be about.

One day, Dali told Buñuel he had dreamt of ants swarming in his hands. Buñuel replied that he had dreamt of slicing open someone’s eye with a cutthroat razor. “There’s the film,” he said, “let’s go and make it.”

As Buñuel later explained, they compiled the script from a series of images which they took it in turns to suggest to each other. There was only one rule:

...No idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted. We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those images that surprised us, without trying to explain why.

When one of them made a suggestion, the other had three seconds in which to say “yes” or “no” to the proposal. This was how Buñuel and Dali wrote Un Chien Andalou (1929). Their intention had been to shock and offend, but rather than offending the public, Un Chien Andalou became an notorious success, which left Buñuel feeling ambivalent over his new found fame:

What can I do about the people who adore all that is new, even when it goes against their deepest convictions, or about the insincere, corrupt press, and the inane herd that saw beauty or poetry in something which was basically no more than a desperate impassioned call for murder

 
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The most infamous image in cinema history?
 
The film had been paid for by Buñuel’s mother, but their next movie L’Âge d’Or (1930) was commissioned by the arts patrons Marie-Laurie and Charles de Noailles. This time their film achieved notoriety after Dali declared it was an attack on the Catholic church. When screened in Paris, the film caused a riot and was banned for 50 years.

After this, Buñuel distanced himself from Surrealism and became a Communist—a decision that ended his friendship Dali and led the painter to damage Buñuel’s reputation in America by denouncing him as an atheist.
 
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Dali’s portrait of Buñuel from 1924.
 
It would take until the late 1940s for Buñuel to re-establish his career as a film director when he started making B-movies in Mexico. In 1950, he co-wrote and directed Los olvidados (The Young & The Damned) for which he Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951.

In 1960, Buñuel wrote “A Statement” on filmmaking for the magazine Film Culture in which explained his views on cinema:

The screen is a dangerous and wonderful instrument, if a free spirit uses it. It is the superior way of expressing the world of dreams, emotions and instinct. The cinema seems to have been invented for the expression of the subconscious, so profoundly is it rooted in poetry. Nevertheless, it almost never pursues these ends.

We rarely see good cinema in the mammoth productions, or in the works that have received the praise of critics and audience. The particular story, the private drama of an individual, cannot interest—I believe—anyone worthy of living in our time.

If a man in the audience shares the joys and sorrows of a character on the screen, it should be because that character reflects the joys and sorrows of all society and so the personal feelings of that man in the audience. Unemployment, insecurity, the fear of war, social injustice, etc., affect all men of our time, and thus, they also affect the individual spectator.

But when the screen tells me that Mr. X is not happy at home and finds amusement with a girl-friend whom he finally abandons to reunite himself with his faithful wife, I find it all very moral and edifying, but it leaves me completely indifferent.

Octavio Paz has said: “But that a man in chains should shut his eyes, the world would explode.” And I could say: But that the white eye-lid of the screen reflect its proper light, the Universe would go up in flames. But for the moment we can sleep in peace: the light of the cinema is conveniently dosified and shackled.

A late starter, age did not diminish Buñuel’s talent as a filmmaker and his most successful movies were made when he was in his sixties and seventies—The Exterminating Angel, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and That Obscure Object of Desire.
 
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Buñuel said he was “An atheist—thank God,”—a line (allegedly) pinched by Kurt Vonnegut, and the only thing he equated with religious passion was his favorite drink a martini. In his autobiography, My Last Breath, Buñuel offered his recipe for the definitive martini:

To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role in my life played by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin’s hymen “like a ray of sunlight through a window-leaving it unbroken.”

Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won’t melt, since nothing’s worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients-glasses, gin, and shaker-in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve.

(During the 1940s, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York taught me a curious variation. Instead of Angostura, he used a dash of Pernod. Frankly, it seemed heretical to me, but apparently it was only a fad.)

In 1984, a year after his death, the BBC produced a documentary on The Life and Times of Don Luis Buñuel, which covered his life from eye-ball slicing to his plans for deathbed pranks to be played on his family and friends.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.12.2015
11:49 am
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Picasso’s poetry: Painting with words
12.08.2014
09:53 am
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Pablo Picasso’s first attempt at poetry was a brief thank you note to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire written in French sometime around 1906. Picasso did not take the craft seriously until 1935 when at the age of fifty-three he began writing poems almost every day until the summer of 1959. Picasso started writing at a moment of crisis when he claimed he had given up painting after his wife Olga Khokhlova had left him and a messy divorce seemed imminent. He began by daubing colors for words in a notebook before moving on to using words to sketch images.

His writing owed much to the influence of Apollinaire and the Surrealists, and he received considerable support from writers such as the Surrealist poets André Breton and Michel Leiris, the latter describing Picasso as:

“[A]n insatiable player with words ... [who, like] James Joyce ... in his Finnegans Wake, ... displayed an equal capacity to promote language as a real thing (one might say) . . . and to use it with as much dazzling liberty.”

Artist and writer Roland Penrose said Picasso’s wrote word paintings where language was used as a painter used colors, can be seen in this poem:

...the blue memory borders white in her very blue eyes and piece of indigo of sky of silver the white white traverse cobalt the white paper that the blue ink tears out blueish its ultramarine descends that white enjoys blue repose agitated in the dark green wall green that writes its pleasure pale green rain that swims yellow green…

At first, Picasso kept his writing secret, but slowly began sending long letters and poems to his friends as his confidence grew and he developed his own distinct voice and style. His writing was mainly stream of consciousness, unpunctuated word association with startling juxtaposition of images and at times an obsession with sex, death and excrement. Picasso wrote hundreds of poems concluding with The Burial of the Count of Orgaz in 1959, and two plays Le Désir attrapé par la queue (1941), which was performed by Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, under the direction of Albert Camus, and Les Quatre Petites Filles (1949). This is just a small selection culled from The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Other Poems.

15 august XXXV

i am now here in the nest where the lamb and the bear—the lion and the zebra—the
wolf and the panther—the fox, the winter and the summer weasel—the mole and the
chinchilla—the rabbit and the sable weave in silence above an abandoned staircase
after the party has washed the week and wrung out the handkerchief raining a
perfume that wanders in search of its shape in a sad afternoon that has so many
reasons to stretch into the oil blue of a silk duvet the corner of his eye rips drowning in
shreds the landscape he sighed in the place where the beehive yearns to form its ice


17 august XXXV

a cup of coffee courts the aroma everlasting
that corrupts the wing shaking a harmonium
caressing her timid white flesh as
kisses breeze through the window
fill the room with goldfinch words fluttering
in the ear soundless and singing
and laughing crazy trills through his veins


8-9 november XXXV

bullfighter’s
jacket of
electric light bulbs
sewn with finest
needle
mist
invented by the bull


10 november XXXV

on the dining room table above a colossal carpet color of dry blood the ashtray
packed with butt-ends looked just like a little death’s head that stuck out its tongue at
me today this very night november tenth a quarter after ten by now which with three
more should make eleven by the clock which then will strike the hour


12 november XXXV

Young girl correctly dressed in a beige coat with violet facings 150.000 – 300 – 22 – 95
centimes a madapolam combination checked and adjusted with an allusion to
hermine fur 143 – 60 – 32 a brassiere the open edges of the wound held separated by
hand pulleys making the sign of the cross perfumed with cheese (Reblochon) 1300 –
75 – 03 – 49 – 317.000 – 25 centimes openings up to date added on every second day
set into the skin by shivers kept awake by the mortal silence of the color lure genre
Lola of Valence 103 plus the languorous looks 310 – 313 plus 300.000 – 80 francs –
15 centimes for a forgotten glance on the dresser – penalties incurred during the game
– throw of the discus between the legs by a succession of facts which for no reason at
all succeeded in making themselves a nest and in some cases transforming themselves
into the reasoned image of the cup 380 – 11 plus expenses but the so academic draw-
ing model for all of history from his birth until this morning doesn’t cry even if one
steps on the finger that points to the exit but spits out his nosegay with the drinking
glass only the smell organized in regiments and parading by flag up front only if the
tickling of desire doesn’t discover the auspicious place to transform the sardine into a
shark the shopping list gets longer only from that moment on without the inevitable
stop at the table at lunch time to be able to write while sitting in the middle of so
many mixed hyperboles with the cheese and the tomato


14 november XXXV

Eugenia fragrant
little chapel of
guitar
strings
clothed in
poppy
black
carbuncles


15 november XXXV

when the bull — opens the gateway of the horse’s belly – with his horn — and sticks
his snout out to the edge — listen in the deepest of all deepest holds — and with saint
lucy’s eyes — to the sounds of moving vans —tight packed with picadors on ponies —
cast off by a black horse — and escaping now and rising like a butterfly — the
mangled belly of the mare — a little white horse — sees inside the conduit which sings
as the blood dances trickling from a faucet in her breast — a circus horse — stands upright
on his feet rear end decked out with blue and silver — white and blue feathers set on
top atop his head — between his two ears — and a pair of hands applauding —
plucks his eyes out from in front – the team of mules that block his sight — that
bounce and drag — his guts along the sand — and screws the eye of the photographer
— somewhere above the banquet table — and pulls the wire out — a little at a time —
into the out of doors — and winds it in a ball — then draws a likeness of his face so
beautiful — onto a silver plaque — that spatters — clenched fist — clean — the sun


24-28 november XXXV

tongue of fire fans the face inside the flute the cup
that singing nibbles the blue knife wound
lightly lightly
seated in the toro’s eye
inscribed inside its head adorned with jasmines
waiting for the veil to swell
the crystal fragment
wind wrapped in fold of cape two-handled sword
caresses gushing
handing bread out to the blind man and the lilac colored dove
its wickedness crammed tight against the burning lemon’s lips
with horn contorted
spooking the cathedral with its farewell gestures
swooning in his arms without an olé
a glance that blows apart the morning radio
that in its kisses photographs a bedbug sun
sucks out the fragrance from the dying hour
and moves across a page in flight
it tears the flowers into shreds and carries them away tucked in between a sighing
wing
and fear that still can smile
a knife that jumps for joy
right now this very day left floating in whatever way it wants to
this exact and necessary moment
at the summit of the well
a cry rose-colored
for the hand that casts it down
a little act of christian love


10 october XXXVI

(I)
flesh decomposing in its miserable shagreen accordion squeezing the love-torn
body rapidly spinning the wool bleeding so in the despairing place in
the crown of thorns nest of twigs at the sound of the tambourine awakened
by the miserable memory left by the vomit that smells of jasmine
glued to the back of the eye wearing cafe tables as sashes wrapped round her
neck sounding the alarm reproducing her image in all the mirrors
with all the blows struck on the cheeks of her bells the tralalala of the
tralalalettes biting the rainbow’s neck the bra of the tempest caught
in a snare now whistles between the comb’s teeth and twists in her hands
the mirror asleep on her breast abandoned to its fate

(II)
comical alphabet letter stitched on hot coal drunk from wineskin hand
distance color deleted from the list of mortals sinks claws in the
saving copper of forehead against stone if life cooks great banquet hall
feasts of cabbage smell on its knees in a corner his stew of hopes sing
Carmen sing and you Cleopatra and mice on the big fishermen’s bodies lined up
on the bank of the canal under the table open to the lie the chairs around
it rise and attach themselves to the walls of the director’s office of the
young villa Marie-Rose waiting for the frog to lick clean the hours that make
the fabric of her pretty umbrella sticky and if the weather is clear
listen to the crack when in my chest breaks the perfume of the
stick the arrow painted on the fan tossed on the bed the luminous alarmed panther
sheen of her regard with an electric aroma a most disagreeable noise
spreading a dreadful odor of stars crushed underfoot


2 july 38

drop by
drop
hardy
pale blue
dies
between
the claws of
green almond
on the rose
trellis

This selection of Picasso’s poetry, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Other Poems, is available as a sampler from Ubu here. Below the complete three part documentary Picasso: Magic, Sex & Death presented by Picasso’s biographer John Richardson from 2001.
 

 
Via Ubu.

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.08.2014
09:53 am
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The surreal teapots of Richard T. Notkin
10.23.2014
11:59 am
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Teaset
Teaset “Iraq 2007”, 2007
 
According to the biographical narrative of sculptor Richard T. Notkin, the Helena, Montana-based artist has been creating surreal and politically charged ceramics for almost 40 years. Of note in Notkin’s long career is his fondness for creating odd-looking teapots; an affinity that was born from his early love of Chinese Yixing teapots. Notkin was so enamoured with his subject that he spent most of the twelve years between 1983 and 1995 creating surrealist-looking teapots. Notkin’s works are also meant to represent his disdain of politics, war and other important societal issues.

Notkin on why he chose the teapot as a way of expressing himself:

Although the vast majority of my work created between 1983 and 1995 consists almost entirely of teapots, I consider myself a sculptor with a strong commitment to social commentary. My chosen medium — the material I love to work with — is clay. The vessel is the primal “canvas” for the ceramic artist, and my vessel of choice is the teapot, the most complex of vessels, consisting of body, handle, spout, lid and knob. This allows me the widest latitude in juxtaposing the many images I use to set up my narrative pieces.

Notkin’s works have been displayed by museums across the world, including locations in New York, Los Angeles, London and Japan. I’m especially fond of the teapots that follow.
 
Light bulb teapot 1984 Richard T. Notkin
Light bulb teapot (variation #6), 1984
 
Nuclear Nuts teapot 1987 by Richard Notkin
“Nuclear Nuts” teapot (variation #12) 1987
 
More after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.23.2014
11:59 am
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Meet the great ‘English eccentric’ who financed the Surrealists

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You may not have heard of Edward James, but you will certainly recognise the back of his head from the painting Not to be Reproduced by René Magritte. This was one of two portraits the Surrealist artist did of James, the other was The Pleasure Principle.

Edward William Frank James (1907–1984) was a poet and a patron of the arts, who used his vast wealth to publish writers (like poet John Betjeman), commission theatrical productions most notably Les Ballets and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s last work together The Seven Deadly Sins in 1933. He also supported individuals, communities in Mexico and financed artisan workshops, but James is most famously known for his patronage of Surrealist art, in particular the artists Magritte, Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dalí. He also bought works by Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Pavel Tchelitchew, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst and Paul Delvaux.

Being rich and aristocratic usually meant James was described as a great “English eccentric,” though he was never fond of the term claiming he was like “the boy with green hair,” just born that way. According to James he was the illegitimate son of King Edward VII, which may have indeed been possible as his mother was said to have been one of the royal’s many mistresses. When he was five, his father (or at least his mother’s husband) died leaving James the sole heir to his fortune and the 8,000 acre family estate of West Dean House in Sussex. James eventually gave away the family estate, financing its reuse as a college. He created his own Surrealist home in Monkton, and then in Las Pozas, Mexico, where he used his money to support its community employing villagers to build houses, a hotel, Surrealist sculptures and architectural follies.

This delightful film The Secret Life of Edward James made in 1978 was narrated by the late jazz singer, art critic and writer George Melly. James and Melly were good friends, united by their passion for Surrealism. Melly was a wonderfully outrageous and much loved performer whose exuberance for life was often matched by his attire. He also wrote three highly entertaining volumes of autobiography and released a whole bag of recordings. If you haven’t heard of George Melly he is worth investigating.
 
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Magritte’s other portrait of Edward James ‘The Pleasure Principle’ (1937).
 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.15.2014
10:36 am
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Surrealism founder André Breton’s apartment is a museum in its own right
06.11.2014
12:37 pm
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I wonder: did André Breton enjoy housework? He must have spent many an hour cleaning and tending to the dust that surely gathered on all the 5,300 artifacts he kept, at one time or another, in his Parisian apartment. (Or maybe he hired someone.)

Father of Surrealism, poet, and writer, Breton moved into number 42 rue Fontaine in the 9e arrondissement on January 1, 1922, and lived there until his death in 1966. During his tenancy, he filled his rooms with thousands of “paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, books, art catalogs, journals, manuscripts, and works of popular and Oceanic art,” all of which would require considerable domestic maintenance. Of course he may have been entirely indifferent to the dust and allowed it to beard his belongings and fur the shelves, as Quentin Crisp and J. G. Ballard were said to have done.

Artists and writers’ studios are, by their very nature, fascinating places, as they are the workshops where the real creative toil is won. And the clutter of belongings, books, and pictures reveals at first hand the sources, inspirations, and fascinations that produced the work.

Fabrice Maze created this beautiful short film on André Breton’s apartment in 1994, in which the camera takes the viewer on a tour through all the accumulation of art works, books, and dust.

Sadly, three years after Breton’s third wife Elsa died in 2000, the French government proved unable or unwilling to buy the apartment and its collection. This led to an auction of the “largest single record of the Surrealist movement.” The Pompidou Center in Paris purchased a wall from Breton’s former home, together with 255 works of arts and objects, which are now on display at the museum.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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06.11.2014
12:37 pm
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