Hans Bellmer
November 22nd - January 17th
1500 S Western Ave. Suite 403
Chicago, 60608

André Breton published his first Manifesto of Surrealism a hundred years ago, in October 1924. Through adapted techniques, the surrealists accessed the poetic powers of the unconscious and the transformative energies of erotic desire, with the aim of revolutionizing life at all levels—individual and everyday as well as collective and political. The surrealists investigated modes of writing and art-making that transgressed the boundaries perpetuating oppressive, ideological structures. Through these creative acts of insubordination, they sought to renew human thought, reasserting the sovereignty of passion and imagination.

Working individually and in collaboration, artist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975) and writer Georges Bataille (1897-1962) produced some of the most enduringly searing and transgressive works of erotic art from the surrealist milieu. Bataille penned his pornographic novel Story of the Eye (Histoire de l'oeil) under the pseudonym Lord Auch in 1928, amidst post-war French reconstruction and political unease; a later version of Histoire de l’oeil, published in Paris in 1951, was censured and banned by the Criminal Court of the Seine due to its explicit depictions of sex and violence. In 1933, with Hitler rising to power, Hans Bellmer completed his first poupée, a ball-jointed doll in the form of an adolescent girl whose articulated body afforded infinite recombinatory possibilities corresponding to the artist’s polymorphously perverse desires. 

Grunts Rare Books is pleased to announce the exhibition Hans Bellmer, featuring a copy of the 1947 edition of Georges Bataille’s Histoire de l'oeil, with illustrations by Hans Bellmer, the 63rd in an edition of 199. Also included in the exhibition is a selection of Hans Bellmer’s drawings and gouaches reproduced in 3 Tableaux, 7 Dessins, 1 Texte DOCUMENTS SURRÉALISTES. This latter publication is a signed copy (46 of 60), with an introduction by André Breton. Additionally, Grunts will provide nine volumes of Cahiers G.L.M., a Surrealist edition published by French poet, translator, and typographer Guy Lévis Mano between 1936 and 1939. Of note, Bellmer’s ‘Naissance de la poupée (Birth of a doll)’ writing and a suite of his drawings— ‘Tour menthe poivrée à la louange des petites filles goulues (Peppermint tower in praise of greedy little girls),’ ‘Pink or green (Rose ou verte),’ ‘Tatouage mobile (Mobile tattoo),’ and ‘Pays sage (Wise country)’—are included in the May 1936 volume. The complete set, on view in the bookstore, features illustrations and photographs by Bellmer, Andre Masson, Man Ray, Jean Mario Prassinos, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, and others, in addition to an infamous seventh issue devoted to dreams assembled under Breton in 1937.

Another Surrealist publication featured, also edited by Breton, is the postwar journal Même, the fourth edition cover of which features a photograph taken by Hans Bellmer of his partner Unica Zürn bound in rope. Published from October 1956 to spring 1959 by book-dealer Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Le Surréalisme, même was emblematic of the period; with it, Breton sought to give new momentum to Surrealist activity by bringing together proprietors of different origins and generations into five detailed editions, four of which are present at Grunts. Among the many contributors to Même were Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, E.L.T. Mesens, Jindrich Styrský, Jean-Claude Silbermann and Meret Oppenheim. Notably, Pauvert also published the first edition of Story of the Eye to be issued under Bataille’s name as well as early editions of Marquis de Sade’s and Kenneth Anger’s first printing of Hollywood Babylon (1959).

To supplement the selected primary materials, Grunts also humbly presents the following contextual devices: reissued correspondence between Bellmer and Zürn (1994), an exhaustive catalog raisonné of Bellmer’s drawings (1967), a inner-cover illustration for Albert Camus’ story titled Betwixt and Between (1956), illustrations for Mynona (the German word for ‘anonymous’ spelled backward) a.ka. Salomo Friedlaender’s Das Eisenbahnglück oder Der Anti-Freud (The Railway Accident or the Anti-Freud (1988), an exhibition catalog from Bellmer’s presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (1975), and a special edition of the French publication Obliques dedicated to Bellmer (1975)—the latter two of which were produced the year of the artist’s death.

Hans Bellmer is on view at Grunts Rare Books, 1500 S Western Ave, suite 403, from November 22, 2024 – January 17, 2025. The gallery is open to visitors on Saturdays and Sundays, 1:00-4:00pm. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 22, 6:00-9:00 pm. Concurrent with the opening is a reading in celebration of the release of ISSUE 0: EROTICISM by the surrealist publication Veilance, from Veilance Press. Among the readers are Issue 0’s featured writer, pseudonymous Daniel H. Hoffmann, who will read excerpts from Bedtime Stories, and Eden Jolie and Els Deitz; co-founders and editors at Veilance Press. The publication highlights the surrealist techniques of dream interpretation, automatic writing, and most essentially, the written anatomy of eroticism.

Grunts Rare Books would like to extend immeasurable gratitude to Marco Witzig, Megan Capps and Nick Schutzenhofer, and Sam Gentner for making this exhibition possible.

Grunts will issue an English language version of Bataille’s ‘Story of the Eye’ with Bellmer’s 1947 illustrations next month, December 2024, parallel to Grunts Rare Books’ debut book club inaugurated by the same title.

Text courtesy J. Biles, E. Jolie, and T. Payton.