Rummaging through materials associated with Fantômas
came across this work with an essay on Philippe Soupault's
"The Death of Nick Carter" and decided to set it in:
I guess the kind of echoes I am interested in with this would come from more contemporary quarters. While Soupault ignores the criticism of his communist bedfellows in the Surrealist movement, and begins to look at the figure of the African American, he meanwhile is involving himself in the literary activities of the internationalist fascist avant-garde.. I'll have to staunch a chuckle here, but look at an excerpt of Jake and Dino Chapman's most recent show whose updated figures of these silly tired perennial debates are actually starting to look cool, the way P.S.'s original genre parody was trying to look, and arguably was, the writing anyway. Nick Carter, found dead outside an insane asylum.
Now what I really find interesting about this show might surprise you. The thing that is really interesting to be is this sort of gnosto-reflexive nod in the dioramatization of the gallery in the round as tableau; ie: Statues are looking at pictures and other statues, and we are too. This isn't new. I can't find the particular castle or schloss I'm looking for, but I've seen images of statues looking in mirrors, holding up paintings, light fixtures etc..
Representations gazing blindly at other representations.
The muteness.
The silence.
of infinite black space,
the nice nazi.
And then there's the curious detail:
and then there's that stanza from Bernard Bador's _Blindmen make love at Noon_:
And then in Sans Souci palace
roots, lianas and stumps enshrine
the spinning eye of the poet
who perished while cross-breeding clones
!
