The Surrealist Sex Pistols According to Marie Arleth Skov

 

André, Johnny & Marie 

(The Surrealist, the Sex Pistol & the Punk Scholar)

 

 

I.

 

I don't know why, but there are some people in the world I just like. 

 

And the Berlin-based Danish art historian, curator, and author Marie Arleth Skov is one such person - even though we have only met once, very briefly, a couple of years ago at a punk symposium in London [a]. 

 

Partly, the reason I feel her to be sympathisch is because her interests and mine intersect and I admire her as a writer. But I also think she has a nice face and a stylish way of dressing [b].  

 

And while Johnny Rotten tells us not to judge a book by its cover [c], D. H. Lawrence argues that if you can't judge a thing by its appearance - which is to say, by the instinctive impression it makes upon you - then you're a fool [d]. And while I'm many things, like Stinky Turner I am not a fool [e].    

 

 

II. 

 

Anyway, this is all by the by. 

 

For we're actually here to discuss Dr Skov's contribution to the recently published Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols (2026): an essay titled 'Dustbin Flowers, Fallen Angels, and Safety-Pin Lips', which examines the punk band in the light of surrealism ...

 

Skov opens her chapter with André Breton's definition of the simplest surrealist act: namely, blindly firing a pistol into a crowd (Breton, 1930). 

 

One immediately assumes, therefore, that we are going to be discussing the random shooting that ends Sid Vicious's unique performance of 'My Way' in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). However, Skov surprises us by referencing instead Johnny Rotten's declared wish to destroy the passerby, which she feels is an "echo of sorts" [f]. 

 

I have to say, that's not my interpretation of this line from 'Anarchy in the U.K.' (EMI, 1976). 

 

For me, just as Rotten's self-description as an anti-Christ is rooted in his ethnoreligious background as the son of Irish Catholic parents - and not, alas, in Nietzschean philosophy - so too does his ambition of wanting to destroy the passerby display traces of lessons learnt in Sunday school by a good little boy in shirt and tie. 

 

Particularly, of course, the parable of the Good Samaritan, as told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (10: 25-37) [g].

 

In other words, the line echoes Christian moral teaching, rather than French surrealism. 

 

Rotten is not, unlike Breton, simply expressing his (typically modernist) political contempt for those who conform to mass society [h]. He is displaying his moral outrage with those who refuse to get involved or directly participate in events. 

 

Like early Christianity - and, indeed, like fascism - punk as practised by Rotten obliges everyone to adopt a position and take a stand; it compels us to action. There can be no passersby and no passive audience members.    

 

III. 

 

According to Skov, as movements, "both punk and surrealism merged the poetic with the political, romance with revolt" (315). 

 

I think that's true. 

 

But, the thing is, one might have hoped for a certain wariness when it comes to this aestheticisation of politics, the logical outcome of which is either the fascism of the far-right or the militant asceticism and theoretical terrorism of the ultra-left - and yet I'm sensing Skov's tacit approval. 

 

In 2026, however, we've got a bigger problem now, as Jello Biafra would say [i] ... 

 

For what's infecting politics today isn't the poetic, but the sacred; and revolt is no longer tied to romance but religion. And even if shouting Allahu Akbar before driving a car into a crowd can be interpreted as a surrealist act against global hegemony inspired by a creed of combat and sacrifice [j], I don't think we should romanticise it.

 

 

IV.

 

Skov is right to highlight the connection between André Masson and Malcolm McLaren - something I've done myself on Torpedo the Ark: click here.

 

I still think Masson's cover design for the first issue of the journal Acéphale (1936-39), featuring an iconic headless figure with stars for nipples and a skull where his sexual organs should be, is one that McLaren should have got Jamie or Vivienne to adapt as a design for the Sex Pistols. 

 

And I still think Bataille's "Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d'être" would have made a great punk slogan [k]. 

And Skov's right also to insist that when speaking of the Sex Pistols, it is vital to remember that one is not merely referring to members of the band, but also McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid, and Jordan - although, rather sweetly, she still insists that "music was the key" (318).    

 

 

V. 

 

Skov quotes a famous couple of lines from the Sex Pistols song 'God Save the Queen' (Virgin, 1977): 

 

We're the flowers in the dustbin  

We're the poison in your human machine.

 

But whereas she sees the first as indicating a "very fragile, tender imagination" (319) and somehow connected to Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), I've always thought it simply revealed Rotten's contempt for the hippies.

 

And whereas she reads the second line as a neo-Luddite critique of relentless mechanisation, for me it's a line that lends weight to Bernard Brook-Partridge's characterisation of the Sex Pistols as the antithesis of humankind [l]. 

 

In other words, it's not the "rejection of a societal system that [...] crushes dreams" (319), and nor does it essentially correlate with "fighting the (dystopian) future" (319). Rather, it echoes the nausea expressed by D. H. Lawrence who wrote: "The very words human, humanity, humanism make one sick." [m]

 

VI.  

 

I like that Skov brings up the subject of alchemy. I would argue that the slogan cash from chaos can be read as an alchemical formula.

 

However, before getting too carried away, it's important to remember the crucial scene in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle in which Steve Jones defecates on a gold disc presented to Johnny Rotten to recognise sales of Never Mind the Bollocks in what is an explicitly counter-alchemical gesture (i.e., the turning of gold back into base matter). 

 

As the female A&R executive with ants crawling on her face in the Swindle says, the Sex Pistols have a "sort of negative Midas touch - everything they touch turns to shit" [n].  And after dumping on the golden disc, Jones credits Malcolm with knowing how to bring out the punk in him - i.e., one who desires to destroy success. 

 

I rather worry at times that Skov's reading of the Sex Pistols is just a tad too upbeat and positive; did they really dance in the dirt in order to create glory? Or did they not seek to degrade the idealist pretensions attached to the latter? 

 

 

VII. 

 

It's true that McLaren and Westwood subscribed to a radical politics of desire that weaponised sex. 

 

But it's also true that this was because they were quite naive and old-fashioned in their thinking, subscribing, for example, to the repressive hypothesis that would be so brilliantly exposed by Foucault in the same year that the Sex Pistols entered public consciousness (1976).  

 

And just as we no longer find it so appealing to romanticise surrealist acts of terrorism, we are no longer nostalgic enough to cling to ideas of sexual revolution, whether inspired by Sade, Reich, or Marcuse (not when we live in a world after the orgy). 

 

Having said that, Skov's ideas on the body in punk and corporeal aesthetics remain fascinating and I really liked her discussion of posture - particularly the idea of slouching as nonconformity.

 

I'm grateful also to learn of Leo Dohmen's surrealist photocollage titled Revanche de la nuit (1958), which features a steel safety pin pierced directly through the lips of a woman - a work about which I knew nothing before reading Skov's essay. 

 

 

VIII.      

 

In the final section of her essay, Skov writes this: 

 

"Of course, the political implications of the Sex Pistols are difficult to pin down [...] Being ambiguous and paradoxical was part of punk's DNA." (323) 

 

And again, that's true as far as it goes, although the politics of boredom or radical negativity as expressed by the Sex Pistols are not entirely beyond our conceptual grasp: beneath the ambiguity lies a fairly simple message after all. 

 

Namely, that politics as traditionally understood and practiced is no longer possible in a transpolitical era and that in order to survive our engagement with nihilism we need to become a little more ironic, a little more insouciant, and a little more intelligent. 

 

In a word, more playful ... 

 

If you make a revolution, make it for fun,  

don't make it in ghastly seriousness,  

don't do it in deadly earnest, 

do it for fun.

 

Above all: 

 

Don't do it because you hate people, 

do it just to spit in their eye. [o] 

 

 

Notes 

 

[a] See the post titled 'On Torn Edges and the Need to Archive' (25 March 2024). 

 

[b] I wouldn't normally comment on someone's looks. But as Dr Skov is someone who writes on the visceral history and rhetoric of the punk body and challenges dualism, I'm assuming she will appreciate that one cannot divorce the intellect from its physical embodiment and stylisation. Without wishing to resurrect and fully endorse the ancient Greek notion of καλοκαγαθία (Kalokagathia), which aligns beauty and virtue, as a Nietzschean, I find the idea still strangely resonates. 

 

[c] I'm referencing the lyrics to 'E.M.I.', by the Sex Pistols, on Never Mind the Bollocks ... (Virgin Records, 1977). 

 

[d] I'm referencing Lawrence's essay 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 192. 

 

[e] Stinky Turner (aka Jeff Geggus) is the lead singer with the Cockney Rejects. 'I Am Not a Fool' was a single on EMI Records, released in 1979. It would be hard to find any trace of surrealism in the Rejects. 

 

[f] Marie Arleth Skov, 'Dustbin Flowers, Fallen Angels, and Safety-Pin Lips', in The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols, ed. Mike Dines, Gabriela Gelain, Paul Graves-Brown and John Schofield (Routledge, 2026), p. 315. All future page references to this work will be inserted directly in the main text.

    It might be noted that Skov does, in fact discuss Sid's 'My Way' performance later in her text and assumes that Breton "would have loved it" (p. 320). 

 

[g] See the post 'I Wanna Destroy the Passerby: Notes on Johnny Rotten as Good Samaritan' (28 May 2020). 

 

[h] I'm aware that his defenders will say my reading of Breton's famous, provocative passage in the Second Manifesto of Surrealism is crass and all-too-literal. I'm afraid, however, that I agree with Camus writing in The Rebel (1951). 

      By fantasising a blind act of violence against a random crowd, Breton reveals a terroristic level of contempt for the public whom he thinks have been debased and crétinised by the System and so deserving of whatever they get. Like so many other modernist intellectuals who claimed to love the People and wish to liberate them, Breton was frustrated and resentful when they preferred the safety and stability of bourgeois lives over the revolution he was offering. 

 

[i] Jello Biafra was the lead singer with the Dead Kennedys. 'We've Got a Bigger Problem Now' is a reworked and updated version of their classic track (and debut single) 'California Über Alles' (1979). It can be found on the EP In God We Trust, Inc., (Alternative Tentacles, 1981). 

 

[j] I'm paraphrasing Michel Foucault who famously characterized the Iranian uprising not as a traditional revolution, but as a collective outburst of political spirituality outside of secular liberalism and the ideals of the Enlightenment. He rightly faced accusations of romanticising anti-modern religious fundamentalism and largely remained silent or evasive regarding the regime's subsequent human rights abuses. 

      See the post 'Foucault's Islamic Folly' (14 Aug 2014). 

 

[k] I would translate this into English as: "Secretly or not, it is necessary to become wholly other, or cease to be." Often, however, the French phrase tout autres is translated as 'completely different'. 

      The line is from Bataille's essay 'The Sacred Conspiracy', which can be found in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 179. Masson's Acéphale can also be found in this book, on p. 180. 

 

[l] Brook-Partridge was a high-profile Tory member of the Greater London Council and, as this interview shows, he was not a fan of punk rock in general, but had a particular loathing of the Sex Pistols. The interview was included by Julien Temple in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980). 

 

[m] D. H. Lawrence, 'Climbing Down Pisgah', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 255. 

 

[n] This two-minute scene at MAMIE Records - which Skov would, I'm sure, describe as surreal - can be watched between 34:56 - 36:54 in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. The role of the A&R executive is played by Jean Warren. Sex Pistols aficionados will recall that a gold disc version of Never Mind the Bollocks with a plastic dog turd on it is featured on the back of the compilation album Flogging a Dead Horse (Virgin Records, 1980). 

 

[o] I quote these lines from D. H. Lawrence's poem 'A Sane Revolution', Pansies (1929) and discuss them in my own essay in The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols (2026); see 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Swindle: Or, Why I Still Believe in the Ruins', pp. 180-191.  

 

 

  

Notes from the Labyrinth on Picasso and the Minotaur

Picasso becoming-minotaur

Photo by Edward Quinn (1959) 

 

'If you marked on a map all of the routes I've made and connected the dots 

with a single line, might not a Minotaur emerge?' - Picasso 

 

I. 

 

Yesterday, I finally got along to the exhibition of ceramics and works on paper by Picasso at the Halcyon Gallery [1], featuring over 130 original pieces, which essentially confirm something that even his critics and detractors know deep down; namely, that Picasso was the greatest artist of the 20th century.   

 

As much as I loved his works, however, I think my favourite image was a photograph by Edward Quinn taken of Picasso masquerading as the Minotaur in his studio in 1959 ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Picasso was obsessed with this taurean figure from Greek mythology, who was famously part man and part bull, and dwelt at the centre of the Labyrinth [2]. 

 

The Minotaur became a powerful symbol of desire, violence, and horror in Picasso's artwork and some authors like to imagine that he also served as Picasso's alter-ego, embodying the cruelty, lust, and virile vulnerability present in his own character and complex personal life [3]. 

 

But of course, Picasso wasn't the only artist who identified in terms of the Minotaur; many of the Surrealists (and associated artists) in the 1930s were also fascinated by this mythical monster, which is why when, in 1933, a title was needed for a new magazine Bataille suggested Minotaure and his pal André Masson excitedly agreed to design a cover for the first edition. 

 

But then Picasso - ever alert to what was going on and not slow in cheerfully stealing ideas and jumping on the lastest trend - co-opted the idea of the Minotaur and, with André Breton's support, not only produced an elaborate image for the magazine's cover, but also supplied four other drawings to be used, insisting that the lead article, to be written by Breton, promoted his vision of the Minotaur.    

 

Whether this makes Picasso the 'fat little magpie' that Adam and the Ants once described him as, or just someone with a genius for seizing the moment and self-promotion (a bit like David Bowie), I'll let readers decide [4]. 

 

 

III. 

 

Despite being published rather irregularly (due to financial considertions), Minotaure (1933-39) proved to be a great success and had a wide circulation in most European countries. 

 

Far superior in quality to most other arts magazines of the period, it was beautifully illustrated and had covers by prominent artists including Matisse, Miró, and Dalí. Not only did it contain articles on the plastic arts and literature, but also music, theatre, philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, esotericism and all things avant-garde. 

 

Whilst not originally intended to be a surrealist publication per se, Breton and his chums on the editorial committee naturally exerted a huge (and ever-increasing) influence on it and Minotaure became a significant element in Surrealism's rise from a relatively obscure circle of poets, artists, and intellectuals in the 1920s to a major movement of 20th century art. 

 

 

Minotaure (Issue 1 - June 1933) 

Cover by Picasso

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Picasso: A Legacy (16 Oct 2025 - 4 Jan 2026) at the Halcyon Gallery (148 New Bond Street, London, W1): for further information and to view selected works, click here. 

 

[2] The Labyrinth was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by Daedalus and his son Icarus, acting upon command of King Minos of Crete. Every nine years the people of Athens were forced to choose seven noble youths and seven beautiful virgins to be offered as sacrificial victims to the Minotaur. He was eventually slain by the Athenian hero Theseus.  

 

[3] See, for example, John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: Volume IV: The Minotaur Years 1933-43 (Jonathan Cape, 2022).

 

[4] To be fair to Picasso, it's not as if he stole an original idea from Bataille and Masson; the Ancient Greek legend of the Minotaur had been popular for some years in intellectual circles and had already been referenced in the work of several other writers and artists. 

      The Adam and the Ants song I'm referring to is 'Picasso Visita el Planeta de los Simios', which can be found on the Prince Charming album (CBS, 1981) and played on YouTube by clicking here.     

 

  

André Masson and the Sex Pistols

The Surrealist and the Sex Pistol:

 André Masson and Malcolm McLaren

Photos by Man Ray (c. 1930) and Joe Stevens (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When asked shortly before his death: Which living artist do you most admire? 

 

Malcolm McLaren answered: 

 

"When I was 18, I studied for three months under the automatist painter André Masson in France. Every day I would buy him tomatoes, a baguette and a bottle of côtes du rhône, but he never spoke. On my last day he bought me a drink and wished me well. He's dead now, but I remain haunted by him." [1]

 

I don't know how true that is, but it's an amusing story [2] and forms an interesting connection with an artist whose relation to surrealism is much discussed, but whose influence on punk is - as far as I know - rarely mentioned. 

 

 

II.

 

My knowledge of Masson is mostly limited to the period when he worked on the journal founded by Georges Bataille - Acéphale (1936-39). 

 

His cover design for the first issue featuring an iconic headless figure with stars for nipples and a skull where his sexual organ should be, has resonated with me ever since I first saw it in the mid-1990s and I'm disappointed that Malcolm didn't ask Jamie or Vivienne to adapt this pagan image on a design for the Sex Pistols.

 

To identify as an anti-Christ is an important start. But equally important is to declare oneself in opposition to the ideal figure of the Vitruvian Man embodying all that is Good, True, and Beautiful - and to repeat after Bataille: "Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d'être." [3]

 

Wouldn't that have made a great punk slogan? 

 

I think so.

And I think also that the sacred conspiracy involving Bataille, Masson, Klossowski and others, anticipates McLaren's idea for SEX as a place which might bring together those sovereign individuals who didn't belong to mainstream society or wish to conform to the dictates of fashion, but wanted to violently affirm their singular being above all else.

 

And so, again, I think it a pity that the dark surrealism of Bataille and Masson - which not only set itself in opposition to all forms of fascism but also all forms of humanism, including André Breton's surrealism - wasn't explored (and exploited) by McLaren; especially as, in Sid Vicious, punk rock had discovered its very own Dionysian superstar [4]; someone who, as Malcolm liked to say, never saw a red light and enacted the primordial powers of instinct and irrationality.  

And, like Masson's acéphalic figure, Vicious even had a penchant for carrying a (sacrificial) knife ... [5]

 

Notes

 

[1] Amy Fleming, 'Portrait of the artist: Malcolm McLaren, musician', in The Guardian (10 Aug 2009): click here. 

      This is an interesting short question and answer piece, which also reveals McLaren's favourite film to be David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). However, I don't think the description of McLaren in the title as a musician is one he would recognise. Sadly, McLaren died eight months after the piece was published (on 8 April 2010). 

 

[2] McLaren's biographer, Paul Gorman, tells us that prior to beginning life as a student at Harrow Technical College & School of Art, Malcolm was "sent by his mother to a summer school in the south of France" and that this (apparently) involved an internship with André Masson and not just enjoying life on the beach at Cannes. 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 45.

 

[3] I would translate this into English as: "Secretly or not, it is necessary to become wholly other, or cease to be." Often the original French phrase tout autres is translated as 'completely different'.

      The line is from Bataille's essay 'The Sacred Conspiracy', which can be found in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 179. Masson's Acéphale can also be found in this book, illustrating the essay on p. 180.       

 

[4] See ' Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) where I develop this idea: click here.

 

[5] See 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You: Notes on the Case of Sid and Nancy' (30 Dec 2020): click here. 

 

 

This post is dedicated to the Danish art historian and curator Marie Arleth Skov, author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023). Her paper at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication (20 March 2024) - 'Berlin Calling: The Dark, Dramatic, and Dazzling Punk Art Praxes of a Divided City' - was inspirational.

In the Bullring With Simon & Simone

André Masson: Bullfighting (1937)

 

 

I. 

 

In response to a recent post [1], the Irish poet and playwright Síomón Solomon asks:

 

"I wonder how you square your squeamishness and selective sentimentality when it comes to bursten bowels and the suffering of animals, with your professed admiration for Bataille's Histoire de l'Oeil - a work which powerfully illustrates the (Nietzschean) idea that, in saying Yes to life in all circumstances and under any conditions, one must ultimately give even the most terrible aspects of existence one's blessing?"

 

 

II. 

 

It's a fair question. And I'm grateful to Solomon for raising it - and also for reminding me of the following passage from Bataille's short novel:

 

"There were actually three things about bullfights that fascinated [Simone]: the first, when the bull comes hurtling out  of the bullpen like a big rat; the second, when its horns plunge all the way into the flank of a mare; the third, when that ludicrous, raw-boned mare gallops across the arena [...] dragging a huge, vile bundle of bowels between her thighs in the most dreadful wan colours [...] Simone's heart throbbed fastest when the exploding bladder dropped its mass of mare's urine on the sand in one quick plop." [2]

 

Sixteen-year-old Simone, then, is the literary antithesis of forty-year-old Kate Leslie, the protagonist of Lawence's Plumed Serpent, who is utterly ashamed and nauseated by what she witnesses at the bullring. Having expected a display of bravery and a gallant show, Kate is shocked by the human cowardice and beastliness - not to mention the sight of blood and smell of bursten bowels [3].

 

But Simone loves everything about the bullfight; the heat, the noise, the cruelty, and not least the possibility of seeing a toreador injured by a monstrously lunging bull. 

 

When her wealthy English patron, Sir Edmund, informs her that at one time it was customary to serve the roasted testicles of the slaughtered bulls to guests seated in the front row of the arena, she begs him to obtain for her the balls of the first beast killed - only she insists they be served raw on a white plate, so that she might lift her dress and sit on them.

 

Unfortunately, this last part proves tricky to accomplish unobserved in a crowded arena. And so Simone simply holds the dish containing the two peeled testicles on her lap, until the opportunity arises to bite into one of them and then slowly and surely insert the other into her cunt - a lewd act which coincides with a handsome young bullfighter having an eye gauged out by a bull "with the same force as a bundle of innards from a belly" [4].                  

 

 

III.

 

What, then, are we to make of this - and how, then, are we to answer Síomón Solomon's question?

 

Firstly, I concede that it takes an almost inhuman effort to affirm even a single moment or joy, when it's in the knowledge that by so doing we affirm also every pain, every sadness, every cruelty, and every obscenity. But that's precisely what we are challenged to do by authors, like Bataille, who subscribe to the idea that all things are tied together beneath the same dark sun. 

 

However, affirming the fact that all things are part of a general economy of the whole, does not, as far as I can see make one morally complicit with evil, nor does it oblige one to participate in wrongdoing. 

 

I can affirm, for example, the pride of the peacock and the lust of the goat, without being a preening narcissist or a licentious libertine; I can affirm the vital cruelty of the natural world, without wanting to watch or make animals suffer in the bullring; and I can even read works of transgressive literature without wanting to act out ... 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'I Don't Know as I Get What D. H. Lawrence is Driving at When He Writes of Bursten Bowels ...' (6 June 2023): click here.   

[2] Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye, trans. Joachim Neugroschal, (Penguin Books, 1982), p. 47.

      For readers unfamiliar with this classic work of the porno-philosophical imagination (originally published in 1928), Simone is a sixteen-year-old erotomaniac with a perverse penchant for inserting soft globular objects - be they eyes, testicles, or boiled eggs - into her vagina or between her arse cheeks. Half-way through the novel, she and her lover - a distant cousin who is the tale's anonymous narrator - run away to Spain in order to escape a police investigation in their native France. Here, they are supported by a fabulously rich (and depraved) Englishman, Sir Edmund, who enthusiastically lays on obscene entertainments for the young couple.  

[3] See Chapter 1 of D. H. Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), 'Beginnings of a Bull-Fight'. 

[4] Bataille, Story of the Eye ... p. 54.

Heads You Lose: Reflections on Craniopagus Parasiticus (with Reference to the Case of Manar Maged)

Manar Maged displaying Islaam, her parasitic twin head, 

seemingly with pride and tender affection

I. Two heads are better than one ... 

I've never been convinced by this old English proverb: indeed, in my younger, more schizonomadic days, I thought the ideal was to be both headless and homeless and had a picture of André Masson's acephalic figure as a screensaver on my laptop.    

I was convinced that human life is debased when it becomes a purely head-bound affair and physical experience bartered away for mere representation; that freedom had to involve escaping from all utility and the tyranny of reason.

Now, however, I'm not quite so Bataillean and - without wishing to sound too Kiplingesque - I very much admire those who can keep their heads as all about are losing theirs. But I still don't believe that two heads are better than one; and certainly not when the second head is fused to the first, as in the extremely rare cases of craniopagus parasiticus.    

It might be fun to have an identical twin. It might even be amusing to be one of a pair, rather than one of a kind, and be a conjoined twin. Abby and Brittany Hensel, for example, seem happy enough and have learned to cooperate and coordinate with an astonishing degree of success, despite being distinct personalities.

But to simply possess a parasitic twin head, that doesn't sound terribly appealing or in any way advantageous to the autosite. So it's probably fortunate that the tiny number of infants with this condition are usually stillborn, or die shortly after coming into the world. But not always, as the following case reminds us ...


II. The Case of Manar Maged (and Islaam)    

After an episode of Oprah featured her story, the whole world was talking about the case of Manar Maged, an Egyptian girl born in March 2004 with two heads - the second of which, named Islaam, had a separate brain and could (rather creepily) display certain autonomous facial features, but fully relied on its sister's vital organs to maintain it's own existence. 

As this parasitic twin head endangered Manar's wellbeing - and also prevented her from being able to crawl or sit up properly - it was decided to operate and attempt to surgically remove poor Islaam. The long, difficult, and extremely dangerous procedure was successfully performed in February 2005 and little Manar was released from intensive care the following month.

Sadly, however, she developed hydrocephaly, followed by a serious brain infection, and died shortly before what would have been her second birthday in March 2006. As for Islaam, she of the enigmatic smile, who knows what became of her ...?     


Thanks to Simon Solomon for suggesting this post. His own unique take on this case can be read by clicking here. If ever a post deserved a twin, it's this one; though which part is the parasitic head is debatable ... 

The Most Beautiful Streets of Paris (Notes on Surrealist Mannequin Fetish)

André Masson: Mannequin (1938)

Photo by Raoul Ubac (gelatin silver print)

The Cleveland Museum of Art

 

If you love Love, you'll love Surrealism ...

Unfortunately, however, I don't love Love - certainly not as some kind of moral absolute - and so have never really much cared for Surrealism as conceived by André Breton, whom, despite his admirable anti-theism ("Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!") remained an idealist and a dogmatist at heart.

However, there are some aspects - the darker, pervier aspects - of Surrealism that do excite my interest. And one of these aspects is the erotic fetishization of mannequins; agalmatophilia being a major component of the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, held in Paris at the beginning of 1938.

The exhibition, organised by Breton and the poet Paul Éluard, pretty much involved everyone who was anyone in the world of Surrealism at the time, including Duchamp, Dalí, Max Ernst, and Man Ray. It was staged in two main sections and a lobby area, displaying paintings and objects as well as unusually decorated rooms which had been redesigned so as to create what would today be called an immersive environment or experience.

It was the first section - Les plus belles rues de Paris - in which a parade of surrealist mannequins was located, including, most dramatically, the one by André Masson pictured above.

The mannequin, or lay figure, has a long if relatively humble history within the world of art; as a tool it's pretty much on a par with an easel, a brush, or a palette knife, even though it served several purposes; from helping fix perspective and understand the fall of light and shadow, to acting as a support for drapery and costume.

Perhaps, in their loneliest moments, some artists looked affectionately - even longingly - at their mannequins as silent companions. But it was only from the 19th century, however, that the latter became the subject of the painting and, ultimately, an objet d'art in its own right. For the Surrealists, however, the mannequin became something else too: a sex object.

Upon entering the most beautiful streets of Paris, visitors encountered sixteen artificial female figures provocatively designed, dressed and posed by Masson and friends. These kinky mannequins were deliberately intended to disturb and to arouse strange (often illicit) desires.

Duchamp, for example, dressed the upper-half of his model in male clothing, but left the lower-half naked, thereby playing with notions of androgyny and obscene exposure. Max Ernst, meanwhile, had intended to place a glowing red light bulb in the underwear of his 'Black Widow' mannequin (revealed by looking up her conveniently raised skirt), but - ever the prude and policeman - André Breton prevented this. 

It was, as indicated, Masson's mannequin that attracted the greatest attention, however,  with its pretty head squeezed into a bird cage covered with red celluloid fish. The mannequin was gagged with a velvet ribbon and had a pansy placed in its mouth.

What this all means, I'm not entirely certain. But it surely isn't just about female objectification and misogyny masquerading as art, or the pornographic violence inherent in male sexuality. Those critics and commentators who exclusively discuss these works in such reductive terms are mistaken and being intellectually lazy, I think. 

This isn't to say that these things aren't realities or worthy of serious discussion. But simply that there are other considerations here; for example, the way in which objects became central within consumer culture - the mannequin in particular being the very embodiment of urban modernity, as Hans Richter pointed out. Or the manner in which fetishization can elevate an object from base utility, transforming it into something magical and seductive, with its own strange allure.         

For me, as a perverse materialist, mannequins, statues and sex-dolls need to be considered as things in themselves and not as mere substitutes for real women. And the men who choose to erotically privilege such over biological entities are deserving neither of ridicule nor condemnation.

The adult imperative to grow-up, stop touching yourself and get a steady girlfriend (i.e. one who is actual, rather than imaginary; human, rather than synthetic; alive, rather than dead) is one that at least some of the Surrealists dared to challenge and for that I admire and respect them.  

Besides, maybe Proust is right to argue that we are all forever isolate at some level; that reciprocity is an illusion and the objects of our affection - whatever their ontological status - simply allow for the projection of our own ideas, fantasies and feelings ... 


Note: those interested in knowing more about the role and rise of the mannequin in Western art should see Jane Munro, Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish, (Yale University Press, 2014).