The Journey: Exquisite Corpse becoming Exquisite Community

My personal history with the subject revived from three decades ago

Who am I 30 years later? Moreover, who are we, collectively, nearly 100 years later?
What the Surrealists began in Paris in the early 20th century still captivates me, along with an entire group of Pacific Northwest artists, who dare to explore redefinition of self.
My first contact with the game of “The Exquisite Corpse” came after completing an MFA in bookmaking and printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and then moving to New York City. There, The Drawing Center had an open call in 1994 for artists to collaboratively create works to be exhibited, then auctioned in the Center’s benefit show “The Return of the Cadavre Exquis”.

I invited a former professor and a colleague, Frank Galuska, and Terese Newman, to join forces with me directly in this event. We submitted two works specifically created for it, and exhibited among hundreds of completed entries, shown salon style in five different global venues over the course of two years. The American multi-media artist Ida Applebroog was the raffle ticket winner of one of our “corpses”.

https://drawingcenter.org/exhibitions/the-return-of-the-cadavre-exquis

Bringing the Surrealists’ impulse of 100 years ago into the now, with a twist

In honor of World Collage Day, initiated in 2018 by KOLAJ magazine out of New Orleans, LA, I committed to starting a regional project, focused on a committed group of Portland, OR artists, invited by me to participate. Thus began “Exquisite Community,” our 21st century response to the game “Exquisite Corpse”, this time emphasizing a vital collective rather than a dead individual.

We go forward in renewed vitality, giving thanks to our founders, the Surrealists, led by Andre Breton. In fact, the first “corpse” was a collaboration by Breton, Max Morine, Jeanette Tanguy, Pierre Naville, and Benjamin Peret, playing a game that suited them…exquisitely! Their impulse, as defined by Breton was: “Pure psychic automation by whose means it is intended to express verbally, or in writing, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought. Dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by reason and outside of all aesthetic or moral preoccupation.” 1

The first resulting phrase, from which the original game gets its name is: “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.” (“The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.”) Their community soon shifted from words to images and many such “corpses” followed among the group at myriad gatherings from the mid-1920’s into the late 30’s.

During most of this period, “corpses” were made of drawn and painted sections, then evolving into collage, which Breton described as “…’attaining two widely separate realities without departing from the realm of our experience, of bringing them together and drawing a spark from their contact.’ Cadavre Exquis was a curiosity to the Surrealists precisely because it laid bare the workings of collage.” 2

https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/exquisite-corpse

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/breton-eluard-hugo-exquisite-corpse-t12005

The collaborative process of Exquisite Community, from organization to exhibition

Collage remains the primary medium for “Exquisite Community”, with mixed media allowed in addition. After its’ debut on World Collage Day 2021, in my home studio, I sought to expand exposure of this project for 2022. I found a vibrant community gallery near my daughter’s college in Eugene, Oregon, so I could attend her weekend sorority events and honor my commitment to all the “EC” participants that signed up and followed through with the completion and delivery schedule!

Most artists worked independently, some among each other, some together on a single section. All were required to either mail or hand deliver their finished and concealed collage to the next participant. This reinforced our sense of cooperation toward our ultimate goal of exhibiting these many complete “beings”.

https://www.newzonegallery.org/special-events.html

With all the received artworks and reception refreshments in tow, I drove down to Eugene to meet up with Jenny Siegel, a friend and fellow mixed media artist, assisting me on the project. Once on site, we began setting up in the gallery’s Klausmeier Room, to only then uncover and sequentially unfold each piece to our great delight. We shared each revealed work as videos on social media.

http:/www.instagram.com/mjmixedmediaart/

Magical mixes found in each of the resulting collage works

In each work, the head sets the mood, from playful to ponderous. The most common element left recognizable, from assorted ephemera, was the face, whether human or animal. Departures into the fantastic then ensued, with elements ranging from anatomically identifiable, or metaphorically suggestive, to completely abstract. Oranges serve as breasts or a torso, a zodiacal chart outlines a pelvis, diamond jewelry becomes bones. While any given figure could at first be perceived as disjunctive, or even broken, a longer look finds a serendipity where one artist’s choice of colors, textures, or motif is echoed by another’s, and by happenstance, harmonizes the whole.

Several participants attended the Friday night opening, commingling with members of the Eugene, OR arts community. Nicer still was having the show on exhibit from Friday into Sunday afternoon welcoming viewers throughout the whole weekend which encompassed World Collage Day.

Exhibition space within New Zone Gallery: Set-up and Reception

Exhibiting artists on site at the exhibition

Reflecting on the Exquisite Community experience so far

Who I am today is the mixed media collage artist who has evolved from participant, to the regional instigator, organizer, and curator, also continuing as a participant. I enjoy gathering others to join me in exploring our interdependence as individuals building a collective selfhood.

Who we are today deserves more freedom to expand into this question, taken section by section. What is a head? A torso? Legs? Feet? Particularly feet, as participants frequently created them in a child-like, 1st position ballet stance, impossible for most people to do.
Addressing the context of physicality, the 1995 catalogue notes: “As postmodernism’s most prevalent subject and site, the body has been used by contemporary artists to explore issues of identity & gender, public health & private pleasure. It is a complex realm, inscribed with cultural codes that catalogue human difference as opposed to universal experience.” 3 Especially alive today, is the playful fluidity around the topic of sexual identity, easily expressed through the juxtaposed elements of collaborative collage. I remain fascinated by how we assemble available ephemera spontaneously, without conscious reflection, thus emphasizing chance, and surprising ourselves with how our facets of perception become a societal lens for us all.

Participating Artists, in alphabetical order, 2021-22:
Jean Aalseth, Rachael Allen, Hope Amico and Adam Ross, Ayomide and Kian, Craig van den Bosch, Saffire Bouchelion, Kevin Cascell, Cheryl Chundyh, Jamie Cathey, Linda Cohen, MJ Connors Davison, Estee David, Melanie Diamond, Torea Frey, Tatiana Graham, Mindy Hawley, Soo Hong, Justone and Valentina, Kiira Kisijona, Clive Knights, Sherri Koehler, Robin Lieberman, Lulu Ludlum, Patricia Lynch, Audrey Marie, Inga Markstrom, White Oak, Halle Preisch, Jannebeth Roell, Kevin Sampsell, Robin Springer, Camille Schechtman, Sheri Schneider, Jenny Siegel, Courtney Sprawls, Kelly Sweat, Justin Tuttle, Laura Weiler, Danny and Joanne White, Sharon Wherland.

Footnotes
1 Manifeste du Surrealisme, Andre Breton, 1924
2 The Return of The Cadavre Exquis, Ingrid Shaffner, The Drawing Center, NYC 1995 p.57
3 IBID, p.19

Quick Bio: MJCD is an internationally collected mixed media artist specializing in collage.