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    Total Refusal / Refus Global
    Total Refusal / Refus Global
    Total Refusal / Refus Global
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Total Refusal / Refus Global

    By Ray Ellenwood

    3.5/5

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    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndependent Publishers Group
    Release dateSep 4, 2018
    ISBN9781550966978
    Total Refusal / Refus Global

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      Book preview

      Total Refusal / Refus Global - Ray Ellenwood

      Formatting note:
      In the electronic versions of this book
      blank pages that appear in the paperback
      have been removed.

      TOTAL REFUSAL

      REFUS GLOBAL

      The Manifesto of the Montréal Automatists

      Translation and Introduction by

      RAY ELLENWOOD

      Publishers of singular Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Drama, Translations and Graphic Books 

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Total refusal : the complete 1948 manifesto of the Montreal Automatists.

      (Exile classics ; 12)

      Translation of: Refus global.

      Translated and with an introduction by Ray Ellenwood.

      Contents: Refus global / Paul-Émile Borduas -- Comments on some current words / Paul-Émile Borduas -- About today’s surrealism / Paul-Émile Borduas -- In the heart of the bulrushes / Claude Gauvreau -- The good life / Claude Gauvreau -- The shadow on the hoop / Claude Gauvreau -- A pictorial work is an experiment and an experience / Bruno Cormier -- Dance and hope / Françoise Sullivan -- Like it or not / Fernand Leduc.

      ISBN 978-1-55096-107-2

      1. Automatism (Art movement). 2. Automatistes (Group of artists) --Quebec (Province) -- Montreal. I. Borduas, Paul-Émile, 1905-1960 II. Ellenwood, Ray III. Series: Exile classics 12

      NX513.A3Q37613 2009 700.9714'09044 C2009-902587-6

      eBooks

      978-1-55096-697-8 (epub)

      978-1-55096-698-5 (mobi)

      978-1-55096-699-2 (PDF)

      Original French Edition copyright © 1948 Maurice Perron

      Translation and Introduction copyright © 1985 and 2009 Ray Ellenwood

      Cover Design based on an original lithograph by Jean-Paul Riopelle

      All of the photographs in this book (with the exception of pages xv and 8, as credited) are the work of Maurice Perron, who was responsible for most of the pictorial documentation concerning the Automatist movement in its early years. They are from the extensive collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, a gift of the Maurice Perron family. Exile Editions and Ray Ellenwood thank the Musée and the Perron family for their generous permission to reproduce these images.

      Published by Exile Editions Ltd ~ www.ExileEditions.com

      144483 Southgate Road 14 – GD, Holstein, Ontario, N0G 2A0

      PDF, ePUB and MOBI versions by Melissa Campos Mendivil

      Publication Copyright © Exile Editions, 2009. All rights reserved

      We gratefully acknowledge, for their support toward our publishing activities, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Exile Editions eBooks are for personal use of the original buyer only. You may not modify, transmit, publish, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the content of this eBook, in whole or in part, without the expressed written consent of the publisher; to do so is an infringement of the copyright and other intellectual property laws. Any inquiries regarding publication rights, translation rights, or film rights – or if you consider this version to be a pirated copy – please contact us via e-mail at: info@exileeditions.com

      The translator is indebted to all those who contributed to the genesis, production and publication of Refus global , but especially to Maurice Perron, Françoise Sullivan, Pierre Gauvreau and Bruno Cormier for help and encouragement with this English edition.

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Paul-Émile Borduas ~ Total Refusal

      Paul-Émile Borduas ~ Comments on Some Current Words

      Paul-Émile Borduas ~ About Today’s Surrealism

      Claude Gauvreau ~ In the Heart of the Bulrushes

      Claude Gauvreau ~ The Good Life

      Claude Gauvreau ~ The Shadow on the Hoop

      Bruno Cormier ~ A Painting Is an Experiment/Experience

      Françoise Sullivan ~ Dance and Hope

      Fernand Leduc ~ Like It or not…

      Related Reading and Websites; Exile Online Resource

      INTRODUCTION

      The collection of texts you are about to read is a unique document in the cultural history of Québec and Canada. It was published in Montréal on August 9, 1948, in a mimeographed edition of 400 copies, the result of a collaboration between artists from various disciplines who had been dubbed les automatistes by a journalist. After causing an uproar in the press (and in the lives of some of the signatories), the manifesto was lost from public view for a number of years until its importance began to be acknowledged in the sixties and seventies. The members of the Automatist group are now seen as forerunners in the Canadian avant-garde, not only in visual arts, where they were pioneers of non-figurative painting and among the first Canadian painters to gain world recognition, but also in literature, dance, design and architecture. Refus global is an important theoretical work and an expression of the hopes and desires of a group of artists who believed they must do something to change the quality of the world they lived in.

      This is the first time that the entire Refus global pamphlet has been available in English. The lead manifesto (so well known in Canada under its original French title that I prefer to call it by that name) was written by the painter Paul-Émile Borduas and is often associated with him alone. This was the text signed by the other members of the group. But the pamphlet as a whole is the expression of a collectivity, an alliance, a gang (as one member called it) who deserve to be much better known in English-speaking Canada. What follows is a brief sketch of their history.

      Along with the upheaval of the war years in Montréal came some very important cultural changes. There was a new energy challenging the established, conservative institutions of the city, helping to introduce a climate receptive to modern art and literature. In 1939, Paul-Émile Borduas was teaching at the École du Meuble, which had been established as a college of design but soon became a rival to the conservative École des Beaux-Arts through the efforts of people like Borduas and the art historian Maurice Gagnon. At the same time, John Lyman became founding Chairman of the Contemporary Arts Society, with Borduas as Vice-President. Within the next few years, the CAS would become a major critic of the policies of the Musée des Beaux-Arts and would in turn be split into factions through pressures created by the urge for reform.

      The war sent not only artists and intellectuals into exile from Europe, but whole collections of paintings as well, some of which were seen for the first time on the North-American continent. Fernand Leger passed through Montréal in 1943, gave a lecture and showed his film Le Ballet méchanique. A travelling exhibit of Dutch painting came in 1944 and many of the works, including those of Mondrian, were a revelation to young Canadian painters. The Québec-born artist, Pellan, who had

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