17 November 07 - 21:43Arts Incohérents
Before there was Fluxus. Before there was dada. There were the Arts Incohérents. Their exhibit in Paris, L'Exposition des Arts Incohérents, in 1893 was attended by over 2000 people including the famous Impressionist painters Renoir, Pissarro, and Manet. The composer Richard Wagner was also in attendance. All of these people were drawn to the Left Bank apartment of the young writer Jules Lévy. Lévy exhibited work by Jean Louis Eugène Emile Cohl (Emile Courtet ) and other artists who used absurdity, satire, and nonsense as tools to upset the social order and artistic orthodoxy of the day. It is incredible to think that all this was happening in the latter part of the 19th century, at a time when even the Impressionists were considered as radicals!Twenty years before Kasimir Malevich exhibited his Black Square on a White Field the poet Paul Bilhaud exhibited his all black satirical drawing Negroes Fighting In a Cellar at Night. The Incoherents were also using found objects in their art, and spontaneous actions, events, and techniques in their work.
The world wasn't quite ready for these artists who were so far ahead of their time. But in many ways they paved the way for the dadaists who followed them nearly 30 years later.
- http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.INCOHERANTS.htm
- http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/counter/html/body_incohere.html
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