Hans Bellmer

“If my work is found to scandalize, that is because for me the world is scandalous.”
        -Hans Bellmer

        Hans Bellmer is another artist I was turned on to by my mentor (he is very perceptive about what will spark my interest). I realized after trying about four times to write this post that I don't have enough background to analyze his work to the extent that I would like to. I think I will probably end up writing an essay on him eventually. I have looked at his work a great deal, and done a fair amount of background research on both Bellmer and the surrealists, but for some reason I'm just not content scratching the surface with this one.
        Bellmer's work is highly controversial, as it depicts a mutant-like doll that he created, which takes a sexualized female form. While Bellmer was working against what was the then (the 1930s, but very much still) idealized female form, he was also working off of some darker (not unfamiliar in surrealism) concepts. It has been said that his doll series was sparked by three things "the reappearance in his family of a beautiful teenage cousin, Ursula Naguschewski, who moved to Berlin from Kassel in 1932; his attendance at a performance of Jacques Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, in which the protagonist falls tragically in love with the lifelike automaton Olympia; and a shipment from his mother of a box of old toys which had belonged to him as a boy." The dolls become elevated to a level of taboo "inappropriateness" then that is both intriguing and concerning, is it okay to have this insight into what was perhaps a sexual fantasy of Bellmer's? Does it weaken the argument against society's ideal view of the female form? This is what surrealism is all about. Desire, the female form, sexuality, death. Much too much for me to handle in the simple setting of this blog.
        I recently picked up a book Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder, I don't have it with me but I can only imagine that Bellmer is mentioned if not talked about in depth. If I ever end up getting around to that essay I will give Bellmer the post he deserves, but in the mean time I will let you come to your own conclusions.

There's a good essay about him here for all the background information (on Bellmer but mainly his work) that I wouldn't be able to sum up better.



images: ubugallery.com & marvelligallery.com