Description
Book SynopsisJan Svankmajer wrote this remarkable book on tactile art when he stopped directing films and experimented intensively with tactile art after repeated censorship by the communist governmnent of Czechoslovakia. Illustrated with over 100 imges, this book is organised around many reproductions of Svanmajker's wondrous tactile art objects, tactile poems, experiments and games. It includes dialogues with, and artworks by, other collaborating artists from the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists. Svankmajer also gathers together as contributors such notable exponents of tactical experience as Edgar Allan Poe, Guillaume Appollinaire, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Edith Clifford Williams, Ay-O, Valie Export, F.T. Marinetti and Karel Teige.
Trade Review'It is typically vankmajer: erudite and very consequential. Sometimes also very funny and erotic. Totally unique and a brilliant example of how Czech intellectuals and artists were capable despite total isolation and censorship under Communism of discovering cosmopolitan islands of knowledge where you would least expect them.' Michael Havas, Czech documentary film producer/director
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Translator's Note Editor's Preface Introduction to the English Language Edition Tactilism Touch 1. Introduction 2. Between Utilitarianism and Imagination 3. Restorer 4. Sources of Tactile Imagination 5. Short Anthology of Tactile Art 6. Inside Afterword: Tactilism Reviewed Notes Bibliography Index
