Acéphale
Encyclopedia
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
(which numbered five issues, from 1936 to 1939) and a secret
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
and esoteric society formed by Bataille and some other members who had sworn to keep silence.
Acéphale, the review
Dated 24 June 1936, the first issue was composed of only eight pages. The cover was illustrated with a drawing by André MassonAndré Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
. This drawing openly inspires itself from the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, the Vitruvian Man
Vitruvian Man
The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and...
, but the latter is decapitated and his groin covered by a skull. Under the title Acéphale, one may read the mentions Religion. Sociologie. Philosophie followed on the next line by the expression the sacred conjuration (la conjuration sacrée).
Bataille's ambitions
The first article, signed by Bataille, is titled "The Sacred Conjuration" and calls "Secretly or not... it is necessary to become different or else cease to be." Further on, Bataille wrote: "Human life is exceeded of serving as head and reason of universe. Insofar as it becomes this head and this reason, insofar as it becomes necessary to the universe, it accepts serfdom."This reference to Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's philosophy should be contextualized in its era: while most of Europe had been conquered by fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, Nietzsche had been appropriated by Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
as one of its utmost thinkers — despite Nietzsche's explicit attacks on anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. Thus, unsurprisingly, the German philosopher was unpopular at the time in France.
The second issue of the review begins with a large article titled "Nietzsche and Fascists," wherein Bataille starts by violently attacking Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche , who went by her second name, was the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the creator of the Nietzsche Archive in 1894....
, Nietzsche's sister who had married in 1885 a notorious antisemite, Bernhard Förster
Bernhard Förster
Bernhard Förster was a nineteenth century German teacher...
— the wedding had led to a final rupture between Nietzsche and his sister. Bataille thereby called Elisabeth Elisabeth Judas-Förster, recalling Nietzsche's declaration: "To never frequent anyone who is involved in this bare-faced fraud concerning races."
The same issue contains an unedited text of Nietzsche on Heraclitus
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
from Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks), as well as an article from Jean Wahl
Jean Wahl
Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.-Early career:He was professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S...
titled "Nietzsche and the Death of God," which is a commentary on a text from Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers was a German psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspers turned to philosophical inquiry and attempted to discover an innovative philosophical system...
on Nietzsche.
The other issues also centered on Nietzsche. The last one, prepared but ultimately not published, was titled "Nietzsche's madness" (La folie de Nietzsche).
Collaborators of the review
Apart from Bataille who signs most of the texts, Roger CailloisRoger Caillois
Roger Caillois was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as games, play and the sacred...
(issue 3 and 4), Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski
Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:...
(issue 1, 2, 3 and 4), André Masson
André Masson
André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...
, Jules Monnerot (issue 3 and 4), Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin
Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil was a French film director, actor, and novelist best known for his films in the fantastique genre such as the vampire film Le Viol du Vampire and the first French gore film Les Raisins de la Mort .-Early life:Jean Rollin was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine , France to...
and Jean Wahl
Jean Wahl
Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.-Early career:He was professor at the Sorbonne from 1936 to 1967, broken by World War II. He was in the U.S...
(in the second issue) also participated in the review.
The Secret Society
Because of its very nature, it is difficult to describe the society's acts. Bataille referred several times to Marcel MaussMarcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology...
who had studied secret societies in Africa, describing them as a "total social phenomenon". On this model, he organized several nocturnal meetings in the woods, near an oak which had been struck by lightning. Members of the Acéphale society were required to adopt several rituals, such as refusing to shake hand with anti-semites and celebrating the decapitation of Louis XVI, an event which prefigured the "chiefless crowd" targed by "acéphalité". Members of the society were also invited to meditation, on texts of Nietzsche, Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
and Mauss read during the assemblies.
The Encyclopaedia Da Costa
They also published Encyclopaedia Da Costa (Da Costa Encyclopédique) meant to coincide with the 1947 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, but due to printing delays, the encyclopedia was not distributed until months after the exhibition ended. Ironically modelled after the format of a conventional encyclopedia, it lambasted social and individual conventions with an unprecedented fervor, as well as perpetrating more recondite clusters of ideas.Perhaps its most insolent entry was the "License to Live", a faux governmental form requesting vital statistics from the bearer in order to enforce its legal fiat; the penalty for failing to keep the document "in order" was death. It is most likely another invention of the mind of Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, typographer for the Encyclopaedia Da Costa, and a gesture that, in keeping with the best of Surrealism, had no obvious relationship to the art object as it is commonly known. A precursor to "License to Live" appears in an earlier note in Duchamp's Green Box, published in 1934 but written 20 years earlier, where he imagines a society in which people must pay for the air they breathe.
By the end of the century the encyclopedia fell into obscurity, partly because those who created it actively discouraged interested parties from procuring copies.
See also
- Documents, a surrealist journal edited by Bataille from 1929 to 1930
- MinotaureMinotaureMinotaure, published between 1933 and 1939, was a Surrealist-oriented publication founded by Albert Skira in Paris. The editors were André Breton and Pierre Mabille. It was a luxurious publication, sporting original artworks on its cover by prestigious artists like Pablo Picasso...
, a primarily surrealist-oriented publication founded by Albert SkiraAlbert SkiraAlbert Skira was a Swiss publisher.In 1933, he contacted André Breton about a new journal, which he planned to be the most luxurious art and literary review the Surrealists had seen, featuring a slick format with many color illustrations. Skira's restriction was that Breton was not allowed to use...
, published in Paris from 1933 to 1939 - La Révolution surréalisteLa Révolution surréalisteLa Révolution surréaliste was a publication by the Surrealists in Paris. Twelve issues were published between 1924 and 1929....
, a seminal Surrealist publication founded by André Breton, published in Paris from 1924 to 1929 - ViewView (magazine)View was an American literary and art magazine published from 1940 to 1947 by artist and writer Charles Henri Ford, and writer and film critic Parker Tyler. The magazine is best known for introducing Surrealism to the American public....
, an American art magazine, primarily covering avant-garde and surrealist art, published from 1940 to 1947 - VVV, a New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
journal published by émigré European surrealists from 1942 through 1944
Texts from Georges Bataille
- L’apprenti Sorcier : Ce que j’ai à dire, éd. de la Différence, Paris, 1937
- Acéphale, réédition des numéros publiés et du numéro final non publié, éd. Jean-Michel Place, Paris, 1995
- L’Apprenti Sorcier (textes, lettres et documents (1932–1939) rassemblés, présentés et annotés par Marina Galletti), Éditions de la Différence, Paris, 1999
Other references
- Maurice BlanchotMaurice BlanchotMaurice Blanchot was a French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist. His work had a strong influence on post-structuralist philosophers such as Jacques Derrida.-Works:...
, La communauté inavouable, Les Éditions de MinuitLes Éditions de MinuitLes Éditions de Minuit is a French publishing house which has its origins in the French Resistance of World War II and still publishes books today.-History:...
, Paris, - Marcel MaussMarcel MaussMarcel Mauss was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology...
, Manuel d’ethnographie, Petite bibliothèque Payot, Paris, 1967 - Michel Surya, Georges Bataille, la mort à l’œuvre, Gallimard, Paris, 1992
- L’unebévue, n° 16 : Les communautés électives, EPEL, 2000
- Stephan Moebius, Die Zauberlehrlinge. Soziologiegeschichte des Collège de Sociologie, Konstanz 2006.
External links
- Acéphale review on-line (January 1937 issue, "Nietzsche and Fascists")
- Da Costa Encyclopédique
- "Acéphale"; Georges Bataille y Pierre Klossowski, ferozmente religiosos by Adolfo Vasquez Rocca PhD