Beschreibung
A Sinister Assassin presents translations of Antonin Artauds largely unknown final work of 1947-48, revealing new insights into his obsessions with the human anatomy, sexuality, societal power, creativity and ill-will. Artauds preoccupations are seminally those of the contemporary world. Those last writings form the most extraordinary element of Artauds entire prolific body of workand is the element now most enduringly inspirational, for artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers, choreographers, and others inspired by Artaud, through their fiercely exploratory, extreme and combative forms. Artauds last conception of performance of 1947-48following his Theatre of Cruelty provocations of the 1930s, and finally incorporated into fragmentary writings and drawings as well as into sonic experimentation in screams and percussionis that of a dance-propelled act of autopsy, generating the body without organs which negates malevolent microbial epidemics. This book assembles Artauds crucial writings and press interviews from September 1947 to March 1948, undertaken at a decrepit pavilion in the grounds of a convalescence clinic in Ivry-sur-Seine, on the southern edge of Paris, as well as in-transit through Pariss streets. Drawing from extensive consultations of Artauds manuscripts, and from many original interviews with his friends, collaborators and doctors of the 1940s, this book brings together translations of all of the many manifestations of Artauds final writings: the contents of his last, death-interrupted notebook; his letters; his two final key texts; his glossolalia; the magazine issue which collected his last fragments; and the two extraordinary interviews he gave to national newspaper journalists in the final days of his life, in which he denounces and refuses both his works recent censorship and his imminent death. Edited, translated and with an Introduction by Stephen Barber, A Sinister Assassin illuminates Artauds last, most intensive and terminal work for the first time.
Autorenportrait
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) is one of the seminal figures of twentieth century writing, art and sound experimentation, known especially for his work with the Surrealist movement, his performance theories, his asylum incarcerations, and his artworks which have been exhibited in major exhibitions, at New York's MOMA and many other art-museums.
