The Star Alphabet of E.L.T. Mesens

Dada and Surrealism in Brussels, Paris and London

The Star Alphabet of E.L.T. Mesens
Mu.Zee, Oostende
July 6-November 11, 2013
website: http://www.muzee.be/mesens/

Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (1903-1971) was one of the most important international protagonists in the art world of the first half of the 20th century. He was a flamboyant and talented artist: a musician, poet, publisher, photographer, curator, art dealer and collector. This exhibition brings the fascinating story of Dadaism and Surrealism to life via Mesens’ exceptional collages, writings and publications.

Part of the Surrealist movement from the very beginning, E.L.T. Mesens was one of its most powerful driving forces. He played an active role in the European international art scene and, from as early as the 1920s, could count people like the Romanian poet Tristan Tzara, the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg and the French composer Erik Satie as friends.
 

Mesens is the man who gave René Magritte international fame and who introduced Surrealism to England. He was friends with numerous artists, including Roland Penrose, Lee Miller, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, André Breton and Man Ray. From 1938 to 1950 he was director of The London Gallery where René Magritte, Paul Delvaux, Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso all exhibited their work. Mesens completely dedicated his life to poetry and the imagination. In the 1950s, he focused on making collages and initiated major exhibitions in the Casino of Knokke.
 

Discover Dada and Surrealism in Brussels, Paris and London. The exhibition The Star Alphabet of E.L.T. Mesens contains numerous works of art, writings and archive photos by René Magritte, Man Ray, Lee Miller, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Yves Tanguy, Amedeo Modigliani, Desmond Morris, Kurt Schwitters and many others!

 

A catalogue is available.

Kemzeke : E.L.T. Mesens

E.L.T. MESENS comme nous l'entendons...

Retrospective exhibition

Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke (B)

14.08.2011 - 16.10.2011

Curators: Geert Verbeke, Simon Delobel
URL: www.verbekefoundation.com/
Catalogue: download the catalogue (in Dutch; also in French)

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the death of E.L.T. Mesens the Verbeke Foundation organizes the first retrospective of his dadaist and surrealist oeuvre. The exhibition contains an exceptional selection of about 200 collages, posters, partitions, letters, magazines and books illustrating the diverse talents and activities of Mesens. He was not only a musician, composer, poet, photographer, collagist, editor and polemist but also a gallerist and art collector. In addition ninety-four window displays illustrate the personalities of as much acquaintances of Mesens: from Eileen Agar, Scottie Wilson and Salvador Dali to Desmond Morris and Peggy Guggenheim.

Surrealism and Situtationism

Surréalistes et situationnistes, vies parallèles
"Histoire et documents"
Jérôme Duwa. Préface de Christophe Bourseiller
Editions Dilecta : Paris 2008
237 pp.

André Breton and Guy Debord never met. It seems indeed that both were mutually exclusive, so to speak.in the sense that Breton and surrealism were said to belong to the past, which World War II had just erased, so that everything had to start from scratch again. But such ahasty judgment on surrealism has to be reconsidered in a spirit which refuses to settle old scores. Was the reason, then, a fundamental divergence or a profound, secret likeness hidden behind superficial rivalry? A detailed history of the up and down relationships between the Paris and Brussels surrealists on the one hand, and Guy Debord and the Situationnists on the other, remained to be written so as to understand one of the mainsprings of the construction of the Situationnist identity. This essay, which includes an anthology of declarations and pamphlets,a dozen illustrations and texts by Jean-Louis Bédouin, André Breton, Claude Courtot, Adrien Dax, Guy Debord, Tom Gutt, Simon Hantaï, Gérard Legrand, Marcel Mariën, Benjamin Péret, José Pierre, Jean Schuster, Jan Strijbosch, Raoul Vaneigem and Joseph Wolman, helps follow the tumultuous course of those parallel lives.