The lassitude at the journey’s end
More tired now than before we left
Over there thoughts tend towards
The infinite, the eternal, the ineffable,
The sky and sleep, the deep and dreams,
Although we observe fleeting impressions
We cannot see things in their totality
We hear but we cannot comprehend
Once I was briefly mistaken for a native
But I am a true citizen of Nowhere
Resident only of wholly imaginary cities
Shimmered reflections in the mirror
Of the lake surrounded by mountains
An agent dealing in unreal estates,
The pregnant stillness before the flash,
The languid ease of definite uncertainty,
Hovering between three distinct stages
That could in the commotion and confusion
Of false memories and vanishing places
Merge and flow together inseparable.
Everybody loves the limpid sunlight
Causing the motes and angels to dance
But close the blinds, shut out beyond
And in the gloom come over to me,
Maybe we can step into that river again?
Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202-Dorothea Tanning 1970-1973
During the late 1960’s/70’s Dorothea Tanning creating her ‘soft sculptures’, pieces of fabric sewn together to create eerie cuddly toys from hell, resulting in perhaps the final masterpiece of Surrealism, the truly unsettling installation Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202.
In a seedy hotel room with wallpaper that emanates despair (remember the only thing going on in Tanning’s childhood was the wallpaper), soft but disturbingly visceral bodies burst from the wall or merge with the furniture. Inspired by a song from her childhood about the gangsters moll Kitty Kane who poisoned herself in Room 202 because the walls were talking, I don’t ever want to check-in into that room at the Poppy Hotel. The whole malevolent atmosphere is reminiscent of David Lynch, though Lynch wasn’t to make Eraserhead until 1977.
Andre Breton Atelier , 42 Rue Fontane-Gilles Ehrmann 1968
Andre Breton’s apartment at Rue Fontane, above the strip clubs and clip joints of the Pigalle red light district was by most accounts almost a work of art in its own right. In 2003 the French auctioneers Calmels Cohen put over 5,300 lots under the hammer from Breton’s vast collection of books, manuscripts, works of art and objects at Drouot-Richelieu; the catalogue alone extends to 8 volumes. The sale included 150 items of Oceanic art, the most important being the magnificent Uli statue from Central New Ireland, Papua New Guinea that graced his desk for many years.
Once again it is instructive to look at the Surrealist Map of the World (reference my previous post Redraw the Map, Re-Write History and Re-Invent Reality) to see the importance official Surrealism attached to the islands of the Pacific. In this idealised rendering of how the world should be according to the Surrealists, Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago is centrally located and larger than both Europe and Africa and truly dwarfs Australia.
Central to Papua New Guinea artistic reputation within Surrealist circles were the Uli, ancestor figures used for rites and endowed with immense magical powers. When a chieftain died his skull was buried and a tree planted on top of the burial place. After the tree had matured it was then cut down and the Uli was fashioned from the wood. The Uli are often bearded with protruding jaw and phallus to represent the traditional masculine attributes of strength and protection, while also possessing breasts as the ideal chieftain must maternally nurture and provide. When the Uli wasn’t participating in fertility, initiation and funerary rituals it would be kept in its own special enclosure away from prying eyes.
Breton was very taken with the Uli, naming a beloved Skye terrier Uli and dedicating a poem which I have included below. I have also included photographs for some of the most outstanding examples of this figure that Breton calls Grand Dieu, as well as the Future Sound of London’s seminal dance track Papua New Guinea, the video of which doesn’t include either the Uli or Papua New Guinea much as far as I can see, but does have some magic squares.
ULI
Surely you are a great god
I have seen you with my own eyes like no one else has
You are still covered with earth and blood you have just created
You are an old peasant who knows nothing
To recover you have eaten like a pig
You are covered with the stains of man
One sees that you have stuffed yourself to the ears
You listen no more
You leer at us from the bottom of a seashell
Your creation tells you hands up, and you still threaten
You frighten, you astonish.
Andre Breton 1948
Uli-Previously of the collection of Andre BretonUli-Central New Ireland Papua New GuineaUli Statue-Central New Ireland Papua New GuineaUli Statues
The painter, writer and occultist Ithell Colquhoun became acquainted with the Surrealist movement in 1938 and it was to forever change her direction as an artist, even though she was only formally a member of the British Surrealist Group for one brief year before being expelled for her refusal to quit several secret societies that she belonged to.
After her encounter with Surrealism Colquhoun would experiment with several Surrealist automatic techniques including decalcomania, fumage, frottage and collage, as well as inventing new techniques such as entopic graphomania and parsemage. Her painting Scylla makes use of Dali’s paranoiac-critical method, resulting in a double image that is both a painting that references the Greek legend of the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis and a phantasmagorical vision of Colquhoun taking a bath.
Eyes to the sky but noses ground down
Right coming up soon another year 2020
Visibility is poor it’s not getting any clearer
Skies are overcast the deluge is approaching
The water is rising temperature climbing
We can dream of a Third Summer of Love
But it will be just another Festival of Hate
Ah well fuck it anything to release energy
A force field of unruly total abandon
In time we will have to beat a hasty retreat
Escape and fortify the cave in the cliff-face
Welcome to my world girl you’re in my hut now
Grunt grunt a little louder I can’t hear you
Jump jump a little higher how low can you go
Down on your knees but please don’t pray
Though I would like to be in your thoughts
As much as you pollute my dreams phantasies
There is no salvation up above only submission
But we can strike on thru to the other side
Storm paradise and lay siege to pleasure
