1929

[éditions de la revue Variété] | [Brussels 1929] | 21.5 x 20 cm | original wrappers

First edition, one of 160 numbered copies on Montval, only print after 7 Japan and 48 Holland.
he work is presented in a half grey morocco chemise, slipcase lined in grey morocco, all signed by Thomas Boichot,
Famous erotic book illustrated with 4 photolithographs of a pornographic nature by Man Ray putting on a performance with Kiki, the inescapable Montparnasse muse of the Roaring Twenties.
Each of these photographs is accompanied with erotic poems by Benjamin Péret for the first semester and Louis Aragon for the second.
Very rare copy of this scandalous pornographic-poetic booklet produced by the Belgian magazine Variété by Paul-Gustave Van Hecke and almost the entire print of which was seized and destroyed by French customs. Indeed, this libertine «almanac» divided into two semesters and four seasons, remains today one of the most licentious surrealist productions. Even more than the Bourgeois society, it is the surrealist aesthetic itself that is mangled here. The four photographs taken by Man Ray at the request of Aragon and Péret to illustrate their crude poems are indeed very «far from the veiled eroticism dear to Breton» (cf. L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque. Eros au secret, Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
On one of the photographs, «the woman is clearly identifiable: it is Kiki from Montparnasse, Man Ray's occasional lover and muse. Her lips, with make-up to form the shape of Cupid's bow, tightly grip a penis that, judging by the angle of the shot, is probably that of the photographer. [...] Many books by surrealist artists are the product of a pornographic imagination, but never in such a scandalous and crude manner as in this publication. (Parr and Badger, he Photobook: A History Volume II, p. 138).
Light, minor foxing on the boards.
Very rare copy.