Fulgur Press has offered an early preview of three upcoming projects that explore the inter-relationship between Surrealism and magick.
** A ground-breaking study: André Breton’s Magic Art
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What is ‘Magic Art’? In 1953, André Breton was commissioned by a prestigious French publisher to explore answers to this question. His submitted text was published in 1957 as L’Art magique, and despite being the last major work from Breton, it has never before been translated into English.
With the consent of Breton’s surviving family, over the last five years we have been working with translators and scholars in the fields of Surrealism and magic to produce the definitive edition of this important text. Taking inspiration from Breton’s own notes, now digitally archived in the Atelier André Breton, we have augmented the original text with more than 300 citations and a comprehensive bibliography. We have also sourced the majority of images Breton selected in 1957, many of which are works now held by major institutions. Our aim has been to create an English edition that fully supports Breton’s own objectives for this much neglected book.
This project will be our first Kickstarter campaign, and will launch in late April 2024. Full details will be released on our website in due course.
Robert Shehu-Ansell
Merlin Cox
Editors
Release date: 28 September 2024.
Launch event: Saturday 2 November 2024, Warburg Institute, London.
But wait, there is more….
** An invitation to respond to Breton’s 1955 Enquiry on ‘magic art’.
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As part of his 1955 research for L’Art magique, André Breton reached out to 250 intellectuals and professionals and invited their response to five questions concerning magic art. Today, we are extending that invitation again via a dedicated website.
Until 30 April 2024, we are accepting responses from professionals working in the fields approached by Breton in 1955: sociology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and criticism, psychology, esotericism, fine art and poetry. From your responses, editors will make a selection to be published in a scholarly companion volume that aims to explore the original criticisms for Breton’s text, and contemporary perspectives today. Those submissions selected for publication will receive a hand-numbered limited edition two volume boxed set of Magic Art, and the companion volume, Magic Art Today.
This is a rare opportunity to participate in a global survey on the definition of ‘magic art’, as formulated by the founder of the Surrealist movement. We would therefore encourage you to share this news with friends and colleagues who may answer Breton’s criteria for participation.
Full details will be found here: www.lartmagique.com.
** Surrealism and the Tarot: A Love Story
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Many long-held aficionados of Surrealism will have heard of the tarot created by Salvador Dalì, or of Arcane 17, André Breton’s novel dedicated to Major Arcana card XVII, The Star. Those with more recent interest might have also encountered the wonderful deck designed by Leonora Carrington, discovered in Mexico in 2018. But was there really a place for tarot in Surrealism? Did the surrealists prophesize with tarot cards, or just play with them? Did they use existing cards, and if so, which ones? Did they make their own?
This forthcoming volume will answer these questions and more. Through a series of essays from leading experts in the field, it addresses a topic that has received very little in-depth scholarly study so far. Extensively illustrated, this book will shine a light on surrealist tarot designs, on the incorporation of tarot cards and designs in surrealist film, art, literature and polemics, and on the influence of surrealist visual tropes upon contemporary tarot design. Ranging from the 1920s to the current day and exploring the range and depth of international surrealist interest in cartomancy, it covers a slew of surrealists, from Penny Slinger to Ithell Colquhoun, from Victor Brauner to Jorge Camacho, and Kay Sage to Alejandro Jodorowsky, among many others.
Tessel M. Bauduin
Editor
Release date: October 2024
Launch event: Saturday 2 November 2024, Warburg Institute, London.
Image: André Breton surveys the window display for Arcane 17, New York, 1945
Photo credit: Maya Deren
** Penny Slinger: An Exorcism, A Photo Romance
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We are delighted to share news of our first monograph with the Surrealist and artist, Penny Slinger. With An Exorcism: A Photo Romance, Slinger explores the feminine psyche further. Developed from a visit to Lilford Hall in 1970 with her then-partner, the filmmaker Peter Whitehead, Slinger provides us with a series of haunting images that chart a process of self-discovery and awakening that was described by Sheldon Williams as “a cascade of photo-collage imagery which has all the emergent trepidation of Hesse’s Steppenwolf.” First published in 1977 with a grant from Roland Penrose’s Elephant Foundation, the original edition has been long out of print. This new edition from Fulgur Press has been expanded with new images from the original series held in the artist’s archive and offers a previously unpublished narrative by Slinger that speaks to the personal and eternal themes of the book.
An Exorcism: A Photo Romance will be available as both a signed deluxe edition, and a standard hardback. We will release full details on our website in due course.
Release date: 24 June 2024
UPDATE
** Leonora Carrington: Major Arcana
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Those of you who have pre-ordered the new edition of Leonora Carrington’s Major Arcana deck will be pleased to know we anticipate that dispatch of all advance orders will begin within the next four weeks. We have a significant volume of orders to send, but these will be processed in strict sequence of receipt. If you have any questions, please reach out to us via the website contact form.
Order Leonora Carrington’s Major Arcana (https://fulgur.co.uk/books/major-arcana-deck/?v=79cba1185463&utm_source=Fulgur+Press+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8ee80f0efd-Touch+Me+Not+22-06-2017_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ba00879e9a-8ee80f0efd-194510477&goal=0_ba00879e9a-8ee80f0efd-194510477&mc_cid=8ee80f0efd&mc_eid=UNIQID)
