Christian Dotremont

Painter - Poet (EN)

  • Binding Paperback with flaps
  • Size 21.5 X 26 cm
  • Pages 144
  • Illustrations 215
  • Language English
  • Year 2022
  • ISBN 9788836651474
  • Price € 28,00  € 26,60
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Abstract

Artist, innovative poet, and nomadic writer, Christian Dotremont (1922-1979) ranks among the most influential figures of the second half of the 20th century. Very quickly drawn into avant-garde movements, Dotremont was a founding member of Revolutionary Surrealism (1947) and a driving force behind the CoBrA group (1948-1951). In 1962, after returning from one of his trips to Lapland, he made his first logograms, a series of compositions in India ink and pencil that amalgamated text and painting, gesture and thought. Throughout his life, Dotremont used his work as a field of investigation into the physicality of writing.

The artist, who died in 1979, would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2022. This book, published on the occasion of the exhibition Christian Dotremont. Painter – Poet, presents several aspects of his work. The abundantly illustrated catalogue compiles logograms, autographs, four-handed creations, and photographs from the Christian Dotremont Archival Fund of the King Baudouin Foundation on deposit at the Archives & Museum of Literature, on loan from several collectors, including Pierre Alechinsky, and from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. This comprehensive and fascinating selection reveals the creative wealth of this major artist.

Contents

Dotremont at the Heart of History
Michel Draguet

The Christian Dotremont Fund at the Archives & Museum of Literature
Laurence Boudart

This Is (Not) a Logogram

CATALOGUE
The legible (close) against the visible
The impression of being a stain
The dance of the tenuous
My blonde, black beast
Mixed sight and vision
Celebrating the scant everywhere
Thread to thread
My fragile superimpositions
Lace in diversion
The form is always there in the background
Hands full of harmonies
Whiteness, I’m coming

Translations of quotes and logograms

Chronology

Selected bibliography

Illustrated works and documents

Acknowledgements and photographic credits