Here’s a list of orphaned items accumulated in years of sharing a common art history and archaeology PhD office, compiled by R. before the move to a new building on Friday:
- office stuff
- research stuff
- other stuff:
Hubert Duprat, Phrygane, c. 1994.
A little bit of fin-de-siècle decadence today, since, reading Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty last week, I came across a passage of Huysmans’s À Rebours (1884) that reminded me of the jewel-encrusted cockroach and French artist Hubert Duprat’s manipulated caddis fly larvae (more about them some time soon). Des Esseintes, Huysmans’s eccentric protagonist, buys a turtle, and to match it with an opulent carpet, he has its shell glazed over with gold and encrusted with gemstones in the shape of a flower.
Illustration by Arthur Zaidenberg.
This turtle was the result of a whim that had suddenly occurred to Des Esseintes a short while before his leaving Paris. Looking one day at an Oriental carpet with iridescent gleams of colour and following with his eyes the silvery glints that ran across the web of the wool, the colours of which were an opaque yellow and a plum violet, he had told himself: it would be a fine experiment to set on this carpet something that would move about and the deep tint of which would bring out and accentuate these tones.
Possessed by this idea, he had strolled at random through the streets; had arrived at the Palais-Royal, and in front of Chevet’s window had suddenly struck his forehead,–a huge turtle met his eyes there, in a tank. He had bought the creature; then, once it was left to itself on the carpet, he had sat down before it and gazed long at it, screwing up his eyes.
[...] he resolved to have his turtle’s back glazed over with gold.
Once back from the jeweller’s who had taken it in to board at his workshop, the beast blazed like a sun in splendour, throwing its flashing rays over the carpet, whose tones were weak and cold in comparison, looking for all the world like a Visigothic targe inlaid with shining scales, the handiwork of some Barbaric craftsman.
At first, Des Esseintes was enchanted with the effect; but he soon came to the conclusion that this gigantic jewel was only half finished, that it would not be really complete and perfect till it was incrusted with precious stones.
[...]
Des Esseintes stood gazing at the turtle where it lay huddled together in one corner of the dining-room, flashing fire in the dim half light.
He felt perfectly happy; his eyes were intoxicated with the splendours of these flowers flashing in jewelled flames against a golden background. Then, contrary to his use, he had an appetite and was dipping his slices of toast spread with super-excellent butter in a cup of tea, an impeccable blend of Si-a-Fayoun, Mo-you-tann and Khansky,–yellow teas, imported from China into Russia by special caravans.
Breton, in one of his many lists in which he constantly forms and reforms the surrealist canon, calls Huysmans a surrealist avant-la-lettre.
…I started explaining to her that I had been out for a walk this morning to get some fresh air, because I hadn’t been able to do any work. Although, I hastened to add - quickly calculating in my head - I had finished writing half a page, well, almost half a page just moments before she called…
From Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Fuir.
“Interestingly enough, all the surrealists were handsome, a fact Dali once pointed out to me. There was the leonine luminosity of Breton and the more refined beauty of Aragon, Eluard, Crevel, and Dali himself. There was Max Ernst with his startling birdlike face and his blue eyes, and Pierre Unik, and all the others - a proud, ardent, and unforgettable group.”
I’m constanly fighting the urge to read more biographies and less theory. It’s just that Surrealist biographies are endlessly entertaining…
Look, for example, at Luis Buñuel’s hilarious comments on making Un Chien Andalou in his autobiography My Last Breath:
When the script was finished, I realized that we had such an original and provocative movie that no ordinary production company would touch it. So once again, I found myself asking my mother for backing, which, thanks to our sympathetic attorney, she consented to provide. I wound up taking the money back to Paris and spending half of it in my usual nightclubs.
The filming took two weeks; there were only five or six of us involved, and most of the time no one quite knew what he was doing.
Dali arrived on the set a few days before the end and spent most of his time pouring wax into the eyes of stuffed donkeys.
At the opening, I was a nervous wreck. In fact, I hid behind the screen with the record player, alternating Argentinian tangos with Tristan and Isolde. Before the show, I’d put some stones in my pocket to throw at the audience in case of disaster [...]. After the film ended, I listened to the prolonged applause and dropped my projectiles discreetly, one by one, on the floor behind the screen.
Visited the Caves of Nottingham with J., M. and E. on Saturday and was reminded, appropriately or not, of David Wilson’s Museum of Jurassic Technology and Roland Albrecht’s Museum der Unerhörten Dinge. They are both museums run by artists that play with notions of truth and fiction. The visitor who comes across the tiny fur of a bonsai stag, a breast-shaped stone said to have belonged to Thomas Mann, a rather curious specimen of Cameroonian stink ant or a 11 x 13 mm fruit stone carving of a Flemish landscape is prompted to question the authenticity of the exhibits and the stories behind them and, ultimately, to reflect on the ways we produce knowledge.
Now I’m not implying that the City of Caves tourist site, a succession of caves dug underneath Nottingham city centre some 1100 years ago, used as a storage, work, meeting and hiding space and even for housing, pursues an equally lofty mission. After entering the underworld via The Rock Shop located in a big shopping centre next to Thorntons and H&M, the guide takes you a couple of stairs down to an enchanted well (featuring ascending blue mist and the possibility to toss a coin and make a wish); a tannery (complete with detailed comments on the nature of the excrements used for the process); slums; and a WWII shelter (including a morally questionable re-enactment of an air raid during the blitz). Re-emerging from the catacombs and getting rid of your hardhat (the equivalent of felt slippers donned by tourists in Medieval castles, I believe), you can finally peruse the shop and purchase Robin Hood arrow heads or fossilised shark teeth dating back 30 Mio years for just three pounds.
In short, one cannot blame M. for doubting the authenticity of this award-winning tourist attraction. The whole place is great fun, but extremely dodgy. However, checking the website today, I came across an unexpected moment of self-awareness and auto-reflexivity, bringing it infinitely closer to the aforementioned artist’s projects:
We still don’t know all the answers. But whatever the truth may be, there is no doubt that the City of Caves is a truly unique site.
Authenticity? Who cares these days, as long as the entertainment is provided.
“The insatiable and gluttonous wolverine emptying its stomach by squeezing itself between trees.”
I got my copy of Olaus Magnus’s 1539 commentary to his Carta Marina back from R. last week, so I’m finally able to post some of my favourite passages. Magnus divides the map into nine sections and describes the various scenes depicted on sea and land. Since it is to a large extent the succession of heterogeneous episodes and images that creates the description’s stunning effect (somewhat lost by choosing extracts), click on the following links to read (and see) the whole thing.
section A - section B - section C - section D - section E - section F - section G - section H - section I - whole map
Olaus Magnus Gothus greets the honourable reader.
A Iceland (Islandia), renowned for its unusual wonders
Four springs of very different nature: the first one by means of its eternal heat changes everything thrown into it into stone, while preserving the original shape, the second one is intolerably cold, the third one produces “beer”, the fourth one breathes forth destructive contagion.
White ravens, falcons, magpies, bears, wolves and hares; yet there are also totally black wolves.
The ice sounding like howling human voices and clearly indicating that human souls are being tormented here.
The pasture is so lush that unless the cattle are kept from grazing, they are destroyed through overfeeding.
Sea monsters, huge as mountains, capsize the ships if they are not frightened away by the sounds of trumpets or by throwing empty barrels into the sea.
B Greenland (Gruntlandia)
The insatiable and gluttonous wolverine emptying its stomach by squeezing itself between trees.
D Faroe Islands
Ducks being hatched from the fruit of the trees.
E Island of Scandia, arms of the Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway
A monster looking like a rhinocerus devours a lobster which is 12 feet long.
Plates are fastened as shields to the feet of the horses so that they will not sink down into the snow.
H Frisland (Frisia) and Denmark (Dania)
Collecting amber on the Prussian coast.
The town of Danzig; inhabited by well-to-do and honest citizens.
I Livonia (Livonia), Kurland (Terra Curetum) and Lithuania (Lituania)
Bears poking honey from the trees, are being beaten down by ironspiked clubs which have been hung there.
Is it any wonder Scandinavian countries attract me? Just stay away from contagious springs, sea monsters and insatiable wolverines…
