Category Archives: French culture

‘Sumptuary moments’ are revolutionary in themselves

Unidentified gold toilet

This is my third post on Georges Bataille‘s general economy. The first was here[1], the second here[2].

This post consists of a quote by the designer Nic Hughes I believe, author of the blog Haunted Geographies.[3]. Yes. Haunted. As in hauntology.

“In ‘The notion of expenditure’ Georges Bataille concentrates on the more destructive expressions of potlatch, specifically ‘non-productive expenditure’- the type of ‘Killing wealth’ only rarely experienced these days. For instance, the KLF’s burning of a million pounds [4] or Ryoei Saito’s cremation [5] of 160 million dollars of fine art. For Bataille, ‘sumptuary moments’ are revolutionary in themselves, purely because they are the antithesis of use. Games, war, spectacle, art, non-reproductive sex, all challenge the tyranny of utility. They ‘represent activities which, at least in primitive circumstances, have no end beyond themselves’ (Bataille, 2004, p118). Later he spins off on a more Nietzschean tact, extending the metaphor to genocide and the destruction of a whole class- the power elite potlatch.” –Nic Hughes at Haunted Geographies [6]

Message on the general economy to Tony

The Trial of Gilles de Rais

Radical Passivity

Message to Tony:

Hi Tony, sorry, I lost your email address. And while I am not interested in your offer, I was very much interested by your questions regarding the general economy of Georges Bataille and the link you provided to Complementarity: Anti-Epistemology after Bohr and Derrida.

While I am familiar with Bataille’s thought, I cannot claim to be an expert on him, my infatuation with him is purely instinctual. The current blogosphere expert is Valter from Surreal Documents. He’s helped me many times regarding Bataille, the last time when I had questions regarding Against Architecture[1].

I did decide to check up on Bataille’s general economy, and found that the theory is propounded most systematically in The Accursed Share.

While I was checking, I came across Radical Passivity, both a book by Thomas Carl Wall and a colloquium by Benda Hofmeyr, as well as some interesting looking work by Dutch academic Joost de Bloois, author of the doctoral thesis L’economie generale: Derrida sur les traces de Bataille (Utrecht, 2003).

Also, while researching, I found some appealing visuals.

Exhibit A: a rather nice and understated but at the same time menacing cover[2] of The Trial of Gilles de Rais, the blotches of blood stains are very Rorschach.
Exhibit B is the poster to the colloquium [3], which depicts a pixelated version of Death by a Thousand Cuts, the image Bataille is most readily associated with. The only image I can think of outside of the gruesome three of the blogosphere, of which I am also glad I see it censored [4] for obvious reasons.
Exhibit C: A nice cover of a work by Joost de Bloois [5].

Valter, if you are reading this, and if you find the time to comment, what is the most current interpretation of Bataille general economy?

The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin (IoEA#28)

It’s time for icon of erotic art #28.

“The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin”[1] is a photograph by Bettina Rheims published in her collection I.N.R.I.. The photo was taken in March 1997 and exhibited at the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont.

Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont [2] is a French art gallery located in Paris. Currently at the gallery is an exhibition by Bettina Rheims, Just like a woman[3], from May 30 – July 16 2008. The exhibition is illuminated by texts by Serge Bramly.

“The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin” is icon of erotic art number 28.

The photo is an obvious reference to the lactation miracles, also called Maria lactans (German page).

Unidentified “Maria lactans” painting depicting St. Bernard of Clairvaux?

From the blog “The hanged man” comes this comment:

Before they were suppressed by the decorous reforms of Trent, these images supported an astonishing range of piety. The medieval craving for physical contact with the divine took satisfaction in reports of lactation miracles.

While St. Bernard of Clairvaux knelt in prayer, a statue of Maria Lactans came to life and bestowed three drops of milk on his lips. St. Gertrude the Great nursed the Baby Jesus and Blessed Angela of Foligno nursed at Christ’s side. Lidwina of Schiedam saw Mary and her attendant virgins fill the sky with floods of their milk. In legend, suckling the Virgin or living saints brought healing and blessings.

Religious allegories celebrated lactation. Mary was the maiden in the garden who gave suck to the unicorn-Christ, the innocent victim hunted by men. Ecclesia, Sophia, Caritas, and sundry Virtues were shown as nursing mothers.[4]

Poking around on Google, I found the image above [5], can anyone ID?

A related IoEA was the Roman Charity one.

Anecdotal nightlife histories and erotic dictionaries

Histoire anecdotique des Cafés & Cabarets de Paris (1862) Alfred Delvau

Histoire anecdotique des Cafés & Cabarets de Paris is a book on Parisian cafés by Alfred Delvau with illustrations by Gustave Courbet, Félicien Rops and Léopold Flameng.

Delvau also wrote Dictionnaire érotique moderne (1864):

This edition printed by Gay et Doucé in 1876 for the members of the “Biblio-Aphrodiphile Société” with an engraved frontispiece by Chauvet after Félicien Rops. With a “Glossaire érotique” by Louis de Landers (= August Scheler). The volume was also published by Editions 10/18.

Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl

FIRST, LET us not confuse the pin-up girl with the pornographic or erotic imagery that dates from the dark backward and abysm of time. The pinup girl is a specific erotic phenomenon, both as to form and function. –Bazin

A public domain photo of Ingrid Bergman

André Bazin‘s 1946 essay “Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl,” was first published as “Entomologie de la pin-up girl “, L’Écran français issue 77, September 1946.

It starts thus:

Definition and Morphology

A wartime product created for the benefit of the American soldiers swarming to a long exile at the four corners of the world, the pin-up girl soon became an industrial product, subject to well-fixed norms and as stable in quality as peanut butter or chewing gum. Rapidly perfected, like the jeep, among those things specifically stipulated for modern American military sociology, she is a perfectly harmonized product of given racial, geographic, social and religious influences.

“Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl” is featured in Qu’est-ce que le cinéma?

Sly as a fox, or, picaros avant la lettre

One more film for Paul Rumsey’s cinematheque: Le Roman de Renard.

The Tale of the Fox, as the film is known in English, was stop-motion animation pioneer Ladislas Starevich‘s first fully-animated feature film. It is based on the tales of Flemish picaro avant-la-lettre Renard the Fox.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcznvlBTQFk]

Le Roman de Renard

Lords, you have heard many tales,
That many tellers have told to you.
How Paris took Helen,
The evil and the pain he felt
Of Tristan that la Chevre
Wrote rather beautifully about;
And fabliaux and epics;
Of the Romance of Yvain and his beast
And many others told in this land
But never have you heard about the war
That was difficult and lengthy
Beween Renart and Ysengrin

Principles of an aesthetics of death

Principes d’une esthétique de la mort by Michel Guiomar

And just when you think you’ve seen everything, a book manages to come out of nowhere and amaze you. Today, at the Antwerp book store Demian, I bought Principes d’une esthétique de la mort, les modes de présences, les présences immédiates, le seuil de l’Au-delà, a book essay by French writer Michel Guiomar, published in 1967 by French cult publisher José Corti. The book has not been translated to English, a possible translation of the title is Principles of an aesthetics of death. The book extensively references jahsonic favourite Gaston Bachelard.

The flower of the swamp, a head. Human and sad.

La Fleur du marécage (1885) by Odilon Redon

In 1885, Odilon Redon depicts a Pierrot entitled La Fleur du marécage and commented with “La fleur du marécage, une tête. humaine et triste.” The engraving is is reminiscent of the fantastic plants of Edward Lear. Marécage is French for swamp, so the title translates as The flower of the swamp, a head. Human and sad.

French theory: the Annales School

The Annales School is a school of historical writing named after the French scholarly journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (first published in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre) where it was first expounded. Annales school history is best known for its approach to history diametrically opposed to various great man theories, incorporating social scientific methods into history resulting in one of the first currents in social history. The Annales school critics influenced later thinkers like Michel Foucault, who, in turn, influenced other Annales thinkers such as American cultural historian Robert Darnton (The Literary Underground of the Old Regime) and the best-known exponent of this school: Fernand Braudel.

The Annalistes, especially Lucien Febvre, advocated a histoire totale, or histoire tout court, a complete study of a historic problem. While several authors continue to carry the Annales banner, today the Annales approach has been less distinctive as more and more historians do work in cultural history and economic history.

The images shown (Thomas Müntzer als Theologe der Revolution, 1921 in a French 10/18 translation and Le Problème de l’incroyance au XVI^e siècle. La religion de Rabelais, 1942) are only tangentially related to the Annales School and were sourced at the enigmatic page La Passion des Anabaptistes by Belgian comic book creators Ambre and David Vandermeulen.

I can’t help but wondering what – if there was one – the relation of the Annalistes was to Georges Bataille, who started his journal Documents in the same year as Annales d’histoire économique et sociale. Perhaps Valter “Surreal Documents” knows?

Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008)

Yves Saint Laurent, 1962

Yves Saint Laurent (August 1 1936 – June 1 2008) was a French fashion designer who was considered ‘one of the greatest figures in French fashion in the 20th century. He was the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art circa 1983.

YSL’s noted creations include the “trapeze dress” from 1958 onwards, with a particularly noted incarnation as the “Mondrian dress“[1] in 1965 which adapted Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie-Woogie painting; his “Le Smoking“, immortalized in a photograph by Helmut Newton [2] which anticipated the androgyny of the 1970s and his perfume “Opium” with an appropriately controversial ad campaign [3] photographed by Steven Meisel.

Laurent was the main couturier for Catherine Deneuve and dressed her in The Hunger and Belle de jour[4], and also did the costumes for Gérard Depardieu in Trop belle pour toi and dressed Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther.

Jahsonic

Burgemeester van Dodenstad