Acéphale

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André Masson’s cover for the first issue of Acéphale. (1936).
André Masson’s cover for the first issue of Acéphale. (1936).

Acéphale (from the Latin a-cephalus, headless or without a chief) designs both a public review created by Georges Bataille (which counted five issues, from 1936 to 1939) and a secret and esoteric society formed by Bataille and some other members whom had sworn to keep silence. Bataille himself maintained close links with the Surrealism movement in Paris.

Contents

[edit] Acéphale, the review

Dated 24 June, 1936, the first issue of Acéphale was composed of only eight pages. The cover was illustrated by a drawing from André Masson, which takes 80% of the page. This drawing openly inspires itself from the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man, but the latter is decapitated and his sex covered by a skull. Under the title Acéphale, one may read the mentions Religion. Sociologie. Philosophie followed on the next line by the expression the sacred conjuration (la conjuration sacrée).

[edit] Bataille's ambitions

The first article, signed by Bataille, is titled "The Sacred Conjuration" and calls "secretly or not... to become altogether other, or cease to be" [1] Further on, Bataille wrote: "Human life is exceeded of serving as head and reason of universe. Insofar as it becomes this head and this reason, insofar as it becomes necessary to the universe, it accepts serfdom." [2]

This reference to Nietzsche's philosophy must be put in context of the times: whilst most of Europe has been conquered by fascism, Nietzsche was reinvindicated by Nazism as one of its upmost thinkers — despite the various explicit attacks of Nietzsche against anti-semitism, nationalism and racism. Thus, unsurprisingly the German philosopher wasn't really popular at the time in France.

The second issue of the review begins with a large article titled Nietzsche and fascists, where Bataille starts by violently attacking Elisabeth Förster, Nietzsche's sister who had married in 1885 a notorious antisemitic, Bernhard Förster — the wedding had lead to a final rupture between Nietzsche and his sister [3]. Bataille hereby called Elisabeth Elisabeth Judas-Förster, recalling Nietzsche's declaration: "To never frequent anyone whom is involved in this bare-faced fraud concerning races."

The same issue contains an inedited traduction of Heraclitus from Nietzsche, an article from Jean Wahl titled Nietzsche and the Death of God, which is a commentary of a text from Karl Jaspers on Nietzsche.

The other issues are also centered on Nietzsche. The last one, prepared but ultimately not published, was titled Nietzsche's madness (La folie de Nietzsche).

[edit] Collaborators of the review

Apart from Bataille who signs most of the texts, Roger Caillois (issue 3 and 4), Pierre Klossowski (issue 1, 2, 3 and 4), André Masson, Jules Monnerot (issue 3 and 4), Jean Rollin and Jean Wahl (in the second issue) also participated in the review.

[edit] The Secret Society

Because of its very nature, it is difficult to describe the society's acts. Bataille refered several times to Marcel Mauss whom had studied secret societies in Africa, describing them as a "total social phenomenon". On this model, he organized several nocturne meetings in the woods, near an oak which had been struck by lightning. Members of the Acéphale society were required to adopt several rituals, such as refusing to shake hand with anti-semitics or celebrating the decapitation of Louis XVI, event which prefigured the "chiefless crowd" targed by "acéphalité". Members of the society are also invited to meditation, on texts of Nietzsche, Freud, Sade and Mauss read during the assemblies.

[edit] The Encyclopaedia Da Costa

They also published Encyclopaedia Da Costa (Da Costa Encyclopédique) meant to coincide with the 1947 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, but due to printing delays, the encyclopedia was not distributed until months after the exhibition ended. Ironically modelled after the format of a conventional encyclopedia, it lambasted social and individual conventions with an unprecedented fervor, as well as perpetrating more recondite clusters of ideas.

Perhaps its most insolent entry was the "License to Live", a faux governmental form requesting vital statistics from the bearer in order to enforce its legal fiat; the penalty for failing to keep the document "in order" was death. It is most likely another invention of the mind of Marcel Duchamp, typographer for the Encyclopaedia Da Costa, and a gesture that, in keeping with the best of Surrealism, had no obvious relationship to the art object as it is commonly known. A precursor to "License to Live" appears in an earlier note in Duchamp's Green Box, published in 1934 but written 20 years earlier, where he imagines a society in which people must pay for the air they breathe.

By the end of the century the encyclopedia fell into obscurity, partly because those who created it actively discouraged interested parties from procuring copies.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ « Il est temps d’abandonner le monde des civilisés et sa lumière. Il est trop tard pour tenir à être raisonnable et instruit — ce qui a mené à une vie sans attrait. Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d’être. » (French)
  2. ^ « La vie humaine est excédée de servir de tête et de raison à l’univers. Dans la mesure où elle devient cette tête et cette raison, dans la mesure où elle devient nécessaire à l’univers, elle accepte un servage. » (French)
  3. ^ See e.g. Nietzsche, Nice, end of December 1887: Draft of letter to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche:
    In the meantime I've seen proof, black on white, that Herr Dr. Förster has not yet severed his connection with the anti-Semitic movement. [...] Since then I've had difficulty coming up with any of the tenderness and protectiveness I've so long felt toward you. The separation between us is thereby decided in really the most absurd way. Have you grasped nothing of the reason why I am in the world? [...] Now it has gone so far that I have to defend myself hand and foot against people who confuse me with these anti-Semitic canaille; after my own sister, my former sister, and after Widemann more recently have given the impetus to this most dire of all confusions. After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic Correspondence my forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of emergency defense against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities shall not sully my ideal!! Nice, end of December 1887: Draft of letter to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Texts from Georges Bataille

  • L’apprenti Sorcier : Ce que j’ai à dire, éd. de la Différence, Paris, 1937
  • Acéphale, réédition des numéros publiés et du numéro final non publié, éd. Jean-Michel Place, Paris, 1995
  • L’Apprenti Sorcier (textes, lettres et documents (1932-1939) rassemblés, présentés et annotés par Marina Galletti), Éditions de la Différence, Paris, 1999

[edit] Other references

  • Maurice Blanchot, La communauté inavouable, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris,
  • Marcel Mauss, Manuel d’ethnographie, Petite bibliothèque Payot, Paris, 1967
  • Michel Surya, Georges Bataille, la mort à l’œuvre, Gallimard, Paris, 1992
  • L’unebévue, n° 16 : Les communautés électives, EPEL, 2000
  • Stephan Moebius, Die Zauberlehrlinge. Soziologiegeschichte des Collège de Sociologie, Konstanz 2006.

[edit] External link

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