Benjamin Péret; Louis Aragon; Man Ray - 1929 - Surrealist Erotica - 1975

28 pages on 14 unpaginated sheets, beige soft cover printed with the title "1929" on the front. Man Ray's pornographic images were titled were "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" and mounted. The book is divided into two semesters: Poems in the first semester (January to June) written by Péret; and the ones on the second semester (July to December) by Aragon.

Published by E.A.R. - Bruxelles in 1975 (way before the Éditions Allia), this is a subsequent edition of the famous surrealist erotica "1929" written by Benjamin Peret and Louis Aragon enriched with four pornographic photos by Man Ray.


JUSTIFICATION: This work was printed in an edition of thirty copies, numbered from 1 to 30, to commemorate the original 1929 edition, which was destroyed (because as often said the entire print run was confiscated and destroyed by the French customs). This one numbered (28). No mention of a paper type, but it seems to be on laid (vergé) paper.

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Interestingly, Peret, Aragon and Man Ray did not hasitate to print their names on this obscene work.

"It was published by the Brussels magazine Variétés in order to offset the costs incurred by the publication of the special issue Le Surréalisme in 1929. The editors (E.L.T. Mesens and P.G. Van Hecke) left it to André Breton and his friends to write or choose the texts and reproductions. For 1929... it was Man Ray, Péret and Aragon who took on the task.

According to the still widespread legend, it is Péret's organ that can be seen in the photographs, or that of Man Ray, or even that the female model is none other than the famous Kiki de Montparnasse, the photographer's companion during those years."

"1929 is, of course, an excellent example of the Surrealists' endemic desire to shock and subvert - to épater les bourgeois - often expressed through an almost schoolboyish obsession with sexual matters and virulent atheism." Reference: Parr-Badger The Photobook: A History II, 138; Pia, Enfer, 937; Dutel, II, 1986.