Mr. Bataille loves flies, so does Boiffard

Mr. Bataille loves flies. Not we: we love the miters of old evocators, the miters of pure linen to whose front point was affixed a blade of gold and upon which flies did not settle, because they had been purified to keep them away.” -André Breton

The photograph of the Papier colant et mouches is by J.-A. Boiffard, first published in 1930 as an illustration for George Bataille’s article “L’esprit moderne et le jeu des transpositions,” in Documents, 1930. No.8, p. 488.

Via Contact Images by Georges Didi-Huberman

See Bretonian and Bataillean strains of Surrealism and toilet philosophy.

See also this wonderful post by Mark Dery on the big toe.

On this day in history

I stopped doing working on my ephemerides (as the French call it) a while because it’s a very time consuming job, that nonetheless needs to be done if I want to finish version 1.0 of artandpop before April 8, 2008. I just finished September 3. Did I forget anyone or anything?

Diamond skull by Hirst sold … to himself

 

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For the Love of God [Google gallery] is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead of the skull. Costing $28 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of $100 million. It was sold on August 30, 2007 for its asking price, making it the most expensive single work by a living artist. Sold to an unnamed investment group, Hirst has kept a share in the work.