11 March 2011

By association

Having seen the Exquisite Corpse exhibition not so long ago, and having played the game (aka Consequences) and made a little book about the idea, I was interested in the Exquisite Book, which you can see here.
It's based on the "chinese whispers" idea - among ten groups of ten illustrators, one was given a few words to inspire the drawing; the others, in turn, saw only the page preceding theirs. So there's a kind of stream-of-consciousness connection to this compilation.

Interesting to see how many artists have used the "Exquisite Corpose" idea - in music, on stage, on film, as well as in visual art. This rather wonderful Surrealist example comes from the National Galleries of Scotland -
"The Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse) was a favourite surrealist game from the mid-1920s onwards. It usually involved three or four participants who added to a drawing, collage or sentence, without seeing what the others had already done. This work is one of several made by [Andre] Breton, his second wife Jacqueline Lamba, and Yves Tanguy, while on a weekend holiday together in February 1938. However, this piece might have been made collaboratively rather than by folding the paper to hide the previous contribution, since there are no fold lines on the paper."

1 comment:

Tonya Ricucci said...

I'd never heard of Exquisite Corpse before. Love the whole idea. That book looks gorgeous. fun post - thanks!