The E Corpse

An Online Exhibition 

 

Nine Exquisite Corpses

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Curated by Deanna Sirlin

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Steven L. Anderson, Andi Arnovitz, Emily Berger, Tracy Burtz, Philip Carpenter,

Sue Coe, Lesley Dill, Ellen Hackl Fagan, Daniele Frison, Edward Austin Hall,

José Heerkens, Marikke Heinz-Hoek, David Humphrey, Benjamin Jones,

Nimet Keser, Cynthia Knott, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel,

Pam Longobardi/Craig Dongoski, Joanne Mattera, Masud Olufani,

Carolanna Parlato, Joe Peragine, Nicolette Reim, Anne Russinof,

Wolf Sakowski, Charles Steckler, Liat Yossifor

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The pandemic has made us all think more about the body, our mortality and the physical. During this time, collaborating and making connections with others has been difficult. Early in 2020, when many of us were under lockdown, musicians performed via Zoom; each stayed in their own home but were able to perform together on the grid. These performances, presented in a Hollywood Squares-like format, were inspirational and healing. For many visual artists, collaboration has become almost impossible during these Covid times. However, chance, experimentation and risk are all part of being an artist. To enable virtual group work, The Art Section revived a collaborative idea from the last century, The Exquisite Corpse.

 

The history of this process dates from 1925, when Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert, André Breton, and Marcel Duchamp created a poem collectively. Each wrote down a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb, and an object to create a sentence. The line of poetry that resulted was, “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau” (“the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine”). Le Cadavre Exquis /The Exquisite Corpse was born. Visual artists adopted the process and made Exquisite Corpse drawings. Each artist added a body part by drawing or collaging, folding or covering the paper so the next artist could not see what was done before.

 

Many artists in the last century made these corpses; the collaborations are witnesses to these artists having been in the same room. Joan Miró, Man Ray, and Tanguy made them. Frida Kahlo was a great fan of the process. The Chicago artists’ group known as the Hairy Who made a series of works in the 1960’s, and Jake and Dinos Chapman made a series in 2000 that are in the Tate’s collection.

 

I asked 28 artists (two are a couple that choose to collaborate) to take this leap and collaborate digitally in the fashion of the Exquisite Corpse. Each artist was assigned a body part (head, torso, or feet) and instructed to line up their image with the marks on a template. Each addressed these instructions in their own choice of medium: drawing, painting, collage, and photography. They did not know with whom they would be collaborating. Some did not follow instructions; they are artists. 

 

As the digital files were received, the bodies were created by lining up the individual body parts on the computer. The result is nine Exquisite Corpses, each unique and made by three artists who did not see one another’s contributions until now. These Exquisite Corpses are works available only on The Art Section; they are collaborations by chance among artists from five different countries.

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Many thanks to all the artists,

Deanna Sirlin

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To view the individual Exquisite Corpses click on each image below to see it larger.

 

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