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Title: Libertarian Tempests Author: Ronald Creagh Date: 2015 Language: en Topics: Egypt, surrealism Source: Original translation from Réfractions n° 34 (printemps 2015) pp. 138-152 Notes: translated by Robby Barnes and Sylvie Kashdan from "Tempêtes libertaires: Georges Hénein, Ramsès Younane, et le mouvement surréaliste en Égypte (1937-1963)," in Réfractions n° 34 (printemps 2015) pp. 138-152
"To define 'liberty' is to restrict its meaning, to explain it is to
limit its scope; for the word 'liberty' only reveals its meaning when
interpreted loosely.
"The farthest that the human mind could go to imagine how to liberate
oneself from boundaries and borders is perhaps what anarchism has said
in the phrase: 'Neither god nor master.'"
—Feisal 'abd al-Rahman Shahbander. [1]
In 1973, a group of Arab students launched the Surrealist Movement in
Exile in Paris, London and Vienna. They reappropriated a rebel art:
"Our surrealism destroys the so-called 'Arab homeland' [...] We explode
the mosques and the streets with the scandal of sex returning to the
body, bursting with flame at each encounter."
And they encouraged blasphemy! They saw in it an eloquent, necessary
act, "if only because it produces a delightful pleasure and opens the
doors of the imagination." [2] Their journal, Libertarian Desire, [3]
was immediately forbidden in most Arabic-speaking countries.
Among the articles published in the journal were some texts of a
previous generation of Egyptian surrealists. In contrast to socialists
and communists of other countries, the authors expressed many
libertarian ideas. They were so independent that they did not recognize
any "superior" authority. They were very active in Cairo beginning in
1937, and for more than twenty years. Their history and reflections are
rich in lessons for a current Egyptian resurgence.
Their works have begun to receive international recognition; the Arabic
texts are trenchant and their poems and stories in French constitute an
important contribution to Francophone literature and art of the
twentieth century.
The abundance, diversity and complexity of the works deserve a large
study which would consider all their interconnections, well beyond what
can be presented in this article.
We can only briefly review here what two major figures, Georges HĂ©nein
and Ramsès Younane did in Egypt. They were very different from one
another and yet always very close. They offered a singular insight
through their activities in French and Arabic circles.
On January 1, 1937, the young painter Kamel El Tamisany published a
Manifesto of the Neo-Orientalists:
"If you see in my works a grave and mysterious expression, I will say
even unusual, apart from any classical beauty, an expression which comes
from that cursed side which exists in me and which is only the
reflection of repressed Oriental feelings, that is where my discoveries
reside." [4]
This insistence on a repressed "Oriental" inner self seems to correspond
to different ideas, expressed in the first official presentation of
surrealism on February 4, 1937. The talk was titled "Assessment of the
Surrealist Movement" [5] and was presented by Georges HĂ©nein, a young
man of 23 who had just received his degree from the Sorbonne.
It was given to the group Les Essayistes, in Cairo, broadcast and then
repeated with some variations in Alexandria on March 1, 1937.
HĂ©nein would become a leader of a current which we understand today as
aiming to revolutionize the collective imagination of Egypt.
Everything seemed unreal. The lecturer was the son of a high dignitary.
His presentation was not in Arabic but in French. His remarks were
surprising. He quoted André Breton, the founding figure of an
extravagant artistic movement, surrealism, who he met a few months
earlier. All this was so far from an Egyptian people struggling in
extreme poverty.
The Egypt of the Pharaohs also seemed unreal. The discovery of the tomb
of Tutankhamun in 1920 triggered egyptomania, especially in France. The
arts and letters community would not sully the pleasure of visiting the
country and making contact with its intellectual elites by references to
the poverty.
An area under the influence of Europe since the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century was discovered. In the
aftermath of the 1914-1918 war, Egypt, under a British protectorate, had
demanded independence. London, which had promised to spare the country
any war effort, had nevertheless requisitioned more than a million men,
buildings, equipment and even crops. But then the British government
rejected all negotiations and deported the leaders of the movement,
causing civil disobedience of such magnitude that Great Britain was
forced to unilaterally proclaim Egypt's independence on February 22,
1922. A month later, Sultan Fouad I proclaimed himself king of the
country. But the British troops still occupied the territory and
monitored it to discourage any moves for real independence.
Nevertheless, the situation changed: the partisans of independence
formed a large popular party, the WAFD, which was triumphantly elected
in 1924. It brought together for the first time Coptic Christians and
Muslims and its green flag bore both the crescent And the cross!
The Nahda, "Renaissance of Modern Arabic" in Egypt, contained
contradictory currents wishing to reform a society dominated by an elite
of large landowners who controlled the parliament and directed the
development of a national art.
Students who traveled to France in 1920 visited the studio of their
compatriot, the sculptor Mahmoud Muktar. They discovered a statue he
created, entitled The Revival of Egypt. This sculpture was transported
to Cairo, where it became a symbolic monument. Egyptian circles, in
search of an identity, rediscovered the Pharaohs while their vanguard
worked on developing a nationalist aesthetic. The Egyptian state
forcefully promoted an official and ritual national art. [6]
The policy encouraged the establishment of communities of people from
the countries bordering the Mediterranean: Ottomans, Syro-Lebanese,
Armenians, Jews, Cypriots, Maltese, Greeks, Italians, French, and
English. They found employment in offices, were involved in commerce,
banks and especially the lucrative management of the Suez Canal. Their
dominant position became clear: by the 1920s, many had been there for
several generations.
The French language played a major role. It afforded a distance from the
British occupiers, and the leaders of the country. They, however, were
busy developing urban planning, education and public health. Whole
districts of Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said were Europeanized. But the
majority of Egyptians lived in urban slums or in the Nile valley.
HĂ©nein's father was a comrade of the founder of the WAFD party. And
George was active in French-speaking circles. He introduced the
surrealist movement into the country and became the most influential
figure.
"Yes we are deniers and we are heretics
To us it is violence that will destroy our masters!
We've been saying yes to them.
Now it's time to tell them SHIT!"
— Georges Hénein [7]
Georges HĂ©nein was born in Cairo in 1914, "amidst a motley assortment of
roast meat street vendors, wool carders, and beggars, in the Qobeissi
district, between the predominantly Jewish and Christian neighborhoods
of Ghamrah and Daher." [8] Since he was of Egyptian stock, it should not
be surprising that his name "Georges" is pronounced in Arabic "Djurdj
Hunayn." He undoubtedly received the thirty-six unctions of the Coptic
baptism.
His father was appointed ambassador to Italy, then to Spain, and he
brought his wife and child to Europe. He then occupied important posts
in various ministries and was awarded the title of "pacha." His mother,
born Marie Zanelli, was an Italian raised in a Catholic family. She was
an antifascist and atheist. She left her first husband, who was also
Egyptian. She spoke impeccable French, "with a lot of passion,"
according to a friend of the family.
Georges was taken from one capital to another as his father was
appointed to various posts. At 16 he began study at the Lycée Pasteur in
Neuilly where he received his two diplomas. One of his teachers was the
writer Daniel-Rops, who was highly regarded in Catholic circles. But
Georges had become an atheist. He identified with surrealism, and sent a
letter to André Breton. Breton, influenced by his reading of Freud, was
aiming to subvert received values, including rationalism, by utilizing
all of the mind's powers, even the unconscious. He issued his first
manifesto in 1924 to create a literary, artistic and revolutionary
current.
Why was George interested in Surrealism? Yves Bonnefoy, who knew him,
wrote superbly that it was a matter of seeking "to understand why
Rimbaud's 'change life' and Marx's 'transform the world' had to be
joined together, in order to avoid two irreparable disasters." [9] In
short, it was necessary to provoke this improbable marriage between
poetic work and political thought. For Georges was a poet.
In Paris, the young man became friends with Breton. He maintained a
correspondence with the great man, after his return to Egypt. He always
treated Breton with deference, though later distancing himself.
Georges HĂ©nein was not typical. Born in a Coptic environment, he defined
himself as anti-Christian. His companion was Ikbal El-Alaily,
granddaughter of the great national poet Ahmed Chawky and daughter of
pious and moderate Muslims, cultured people. Both families opposed their
marriage; it took place much later in France, in 1955.
HĂ©nein's early writings were harsh in tone. They lay bare his own
milieu, that of the ruling class, including public art. His "Dictionary
for the use of the bourgeois world" [10] defined the museum as the
"glorification of a large pile of official garbage, an allusion to the
painter Muhammad Nagi, who was recognized in official circles, which
conceived the museum as a forum in the service of a nationalist
construction." [11]
HĂ©nein treated everyone with equal consideration. Despite his outbursts
of temper, he attracted people. Others joined, notably Ramsès Younane,
who was a fluent Arabic speaker. HĂ©nein revised the writings of this
fellow traveler, and Younane corrected his friend's Arabic. [12]
Ramsès Younane was born in Minyah, Upper Egypt, to a very poor family in
the majority Coptic milieu of the city. When he was 15 years old, his
father died and he had to go to work to feed his four younger brothers.
He nevertheless succeeded in entering the Cairo School of Fine Arts and
graduated in 1933. As a painter, translator and thinker, he was
convinced, as Wilhelm Reich was later, that a people's transformation
occurs through the imagination. He earned his living as an itinerant
high school drawing teacher in several towns. He nevertheless
participated every year in Cairo art exhibitions. Since he was friends
with HĂ©nein, they worked in close collaboration.
"Art is a powder magazine"
—Nicolas Calas [13]
A surrealist collective was formed in 1937. They met every day at a
cafe. Its founders were HĂ©nein and Younane, Kamel El Telmisany, a
painter and essayist, and the brothers Fouad and Anwar Kamel. They were
joined by Marie Cavadia (1901-1970), who held a progressive salon, the
brothers Henri and Raoul Curiel, and the novelist Albert Cossery. [14]
They weren't all surrealists, far from it. Some became famous in other
artistic movements. As for the founders, they worked together, and their
surrealist ideas were always listened to even if they were not shared.
They also had the support of Ikbal El-Alaili, who had her own literary
activities.
A few years later, they met again almost every evening, and when the
women went home, the men put revolutionary slogans on the walls of the
police stations.
There were always newcomers. In 1944, for example, HĂ©nein became friends
with Arturo Schwarz from Alexandria, one of the leaders of the illegal
Egyptian Trotskyist party. Schwarz was arrested and imprisoned until
autumn 1945. He was imprisoned a second time later and expelled to Italy
in 1949. [15]
1938 was a black year for Egypt. The agrarian crisis, government
corruption, the failure of the WAFD to free itself from the British
influence, prompted the emergence of groups of young fascists and
royalists, the "blue shirts." Moreover, the conflict between
nationalists and monarchists created another paramilitary Fascist
organization, Misr Al-Fattah (Young Egypt), to counter the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was already present in the country. Some of the new
generation of foreign residents were interested in the Soviet revolution
and communism.
HĂ©nein was sickened by the Moscow trials, a virulent anti-Stalinist, and
a passionate defender of the Spanish revolution. But he was also
appalled by the degradation of culture in the Axis countries, and so he
signed the manifesto that Trotsky wrote with Breton.
The text "For an Independent Revolutionary Art," signed in mid-July 1938
by Diego Rivera and Breton, proposed the creation of an International
Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI). It defined itself
thus:
"If, for the development of the material productive forces, the
revolution must erect a centralized socialist system, for intellectual
creation it must from the very beginning establish and ensure an
anarchist form of individual freedom. There must be no authority, no
constraints, not the least trace of command! The various associations of
scholars and the collective groups of artists who will work to take on
the great tasks, can arise and carry out fruitful work only on the basis
of creative free friendship, without any constraint from the outside."
And further on:
"The Marxists can walk here hand in hand with the anarchists ..." [16]
The document contained no reference to Revolutionary Guards who would
watch the artists. [17]
Events pushed HĂ©nein towards a more concrete commitment in politics. In
March 1938, he created a scandal at a presentation in Cairo by the
Italian futurist Marinetti. HĂ©nein denounced works which were supposedly
artistic but which were only created to serve fascism. This denunciation
was a scandal. Political differences emerged among listeners, a fairly
mundane group which until then shared a common attraction for culture.
Then a leaflet in Arabic and French was circulated. [18] It denounced
the Nazi offensive against modern art. It was also an attack on the
cultivated Egyptians who condemned "any literary and artistic creation
more or less directly threatening intellectual disciplines and moral
values." It was the first episode of a struggle with contradictory
objectives, literary autonomy, but articulated in politics, a
universalist will, but rooted in the local mother tongue. Thirty-seven
artists, writers, journalists and lawyers from Egypt signed the
manifesto.
In January 1939 the Art and Liberty [Jamaat al-Fann wa al-Hurriyya]
association was created. Inspired by the Mexico manifesto, it adhered to
the International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI).
This political collective did not identify itself as surrealist,
although HĂ©nein and Younane were influential in the group.
According to a historian of the movement, Don LaCoss, this rallying to
the emerging Trotskyist movement reflected support for anti-Stalinism,
recognition of Trotsky's role in Russia's withdrawal from the First
World War, but not necessarily support for its crimes against the
anarchists. The members, Marxists, Trotskyists and others were
completely independent. [19] HĂ©nein was not an anarchist, but he was
surely a libertarian. [20]
Like the group of surrealists, the association transgressed the
religious divisions so important in the Middle East. It brought together
Sunni Muslims and Shiites, Jews, Copts and Protestants. This cocktail of
Jews and Christians, generally atheists, free-thinking Muslims and
European anarchists, present in Cairo, Alexandria and also in Beirut,
constituted a hybrid anarcho-socialism, crossing national boundaries of
stagnant Established opinion. It reappeared several times in Egypt
before Nasser's takeover.
The members of the association were diverse, including the Arab teacher
Ramsès Younane, the Italian portraitist Angelo de Riz (an anarchist
refugee in Cairo), and the Jewish poet Edmond Jabès. They also had
different professions. Kamel El-Telmisany was a painter as well as a
filmmaker; Émile Simon was a journalist ...
The group departed from Marxist orthodoxy in the recruitment of members
and in its writings: it discussed such figures as Tolstoy. In short, it
was a Trotskyist-libertarian network independent of any party. It was
neither a Paris branch nor a group serving a cause. Each member retained
his individuality.
The newsletter, Art and Liberty, dealt with anti-fascism,
anti-imperialism, the reform of radical education and Freudian theory.
It aimed at broader objectives than those of FIARI, notably the
emancipation of women, a subject that frequently came up. The criticism
of the state was fierce. HĂ©nein went so far as to declare:
"There is no abstract democracy, but there is the democracy granted or
withdrawn or limited, according as the use which is made of it directly
threatens the interests or not of some material powers. There are only
differences of degree, not nature, of intensity, not kind between the
democratic and the fascist regimes." [21]
This was not far from Karl Marx's idea that the suppression of
capitalist relations of production will lead to a society without a
state.
Only the non-French section of the FIARI, Art and Liberty, lasted longer
than this group, which disappeared in 1939 because of the Second World
War. The French publications discussed international events, but in
connection with specifically Egyptian problems. The influence of
surrealism was obvious. Social unrest was brought to artistic and
political circles.
The Art and Liberty newsletter put out only two issues. It was followed
on December 6, 1939 by the weekly Don Quixote. HĂ©nein created this
magazine with his friend Henri Curiel, an unconditional admirer of the
Soviet Union. [22] The two comrades used their fortunes to finance
literary and socialist magazines. Nineteen issues were published until
March 29, 1940. [23] Another journal followed, La Part du Sable, with
four issues, published in 1947, 1950, 1954 and 1955. The group was spied
on by the Egyptian and British authorities. It had crossed a red line,
having very early become oriented towards the Arabic-speaking
population.
As usual, the guardians of Arab Orthodoxy endeavored to enclose the
association in an intellectual ghetto. The Arab newspaper al-Risala
denigrated one of the group's texts, "Long Live Degenerate Art" ("Vive
l'art degénéré").
El-Telmisany, among others, Responded:
"Art does not belong to any country, my friend ... Do you doubt that
national art movements can circulate easily from one country to another?
... We want a culture that is in harmony with the Rest of the world."
[24]
This friendly gesture towards a stubborn opponent was an invitation to
cross the national barriers and also defy the alternative East-West
dichotomy. El-Telmisany saw surrealism in Asia or even in popular
Egyptian works such as sugar dolls that have four hands and some stories
of folklore. He saw Freudian elements in some works of the great Arab
painters and writers. According to El-Telmisany, surrealism is a
scientific word that can be used to designate every work of the
imagination that is free in its expression and style.
Younane wrote that Surrealism is neither artistic nor political, nor a
mixture of the two. It is all this but also philosophical, psychological
and spiritual, for it draws its inspiration from Rimbaud and Baudelaire.
It is a liberating movement, but it can only be achieved with a social
revolution that will introduce economic equality.
The controversy continued for a month in al-Risala, ensuring publicity
for the association in the Arab world. [25]
The association published attacks on the French-speaking
bourgeoisie—necessarily indirect to evade the censorship—which were
aimed at appealing to Arabic cultural circles. The group waged a double
battle, one against the official institutions which affected art in the
service of the State; the other to agitate among the Arabic-speaking
middle strata.
The Egyptian world of art, turned towards the cult of the state,
received the slap of surrealism. The Art and Liberty Association
organized five annual exhibitions, with the participation of painters
and artists from other Arab countries as well as an impressive number of
women whose creations were highlighted, including paintings and
photographs. It was indeed a committed art: even exhibitions ought to
change the world. [26]
In the context of Egypt, the exhibitions were seen as especially
audacious because Sunni Islam condemns the reproduction of images. The
works of art clearly showed images of the bodies of creatures. The
exhibitions were very controversial but they were not prohibited. During
the war the British tolerated Art and Liberty because its antifascist
propaganda in Arabic opposed that of the national liberation movements,
the Islamist Nationalist Party and the sections of the Muslim
Brotherhood, all suspected of spying for the Germans. [27]
Ramsès Younane was the first to popularize the ideas of surrealism in
the Arabic-speaking world through an introduction to a history of
European painting, Le Dessein de l'artiste contemporain, in 1938. [28]
We must also mention the Egyptian fellah. Art and Liberty launched an
Arab socialist monthly, al-Tatawwur [Evolution] which appeared from
January to July 1940. [29] Anwar Kamil, the editor, was also a
surrealist. The journal discussed poverty and fascism, offered a
critical reading of culture and blamed the government, which resulted in
it being banned and Kamil imprisoned. In 1942, the Surrealists launched
another newspaper, al-Majalla al-Kifah al-Ijtima'i, which was also
banned by the government in 1944. The editor, Younane, was imprisoned
and then deported to France.
The group did not limit its activities to journalism. It organized
conferences, debates, screenings of films, and engaged in activities in
the Arab quarters of the city. In the supposedly dangerous areas of
Cairo, it ran a popular university, including courses on art, from which
quality artists emerged. [30]
After Greece was liberated from the Nazis, civil war broke out. The
British government worked to crush anti-fascist resistance and supported
the most reactionary Greek groups. British troops stationed in Egypt
refused to go to fight in Greece and went on strike. Leaflets were
dropped from an airplane urging them to surrender. The Egyptian
surrealists and other non-Stalinist socialists dropped butterflies
congratulating the soldiers for their courage and inviting them to
maintain their position.
In 1944 the British and Egyptian authorities began serious repression.
But the movement continued to be defiant.
The prestige of France had been much diminished because of the rapid
surrender to the Nazis at the beginning of the war. But in 1945,
Egyptians praised the Resistance. Georges HĂ©nein wrote that "the poetry
of resistance" is "a very recent form of resistance to poetry." [31]
That same year, Ikbal El-Alaily published an anthology of the German
romantics which showed that Germany also had aspects beyond its
military. She was arrested for obstructing the war effort, and
questioned by British military intelligence and the Egyptian security
services. El-Alaily was ordered to break with the Art and Liberty group
and the surrealists, or be sent to forced labor in the notorious
quarries of Tura. [32]
In February 1946, the Surrealists joined the movement against the
British military occupation of Egypt. Three thousand students from
Alexandria went into the neighborhoods where some thirty thousand
textile workers lived. The police shot at them, killing five people.
Sixteen members of the Surrealist group were imprisoned. Over time, some
went into exile.
HĂ©nein, who still resided in Egypt, broke with the Fourth International.
His friend Benjamin PĂ©ret also did so, and moved to Paris, where many
surrealists joined the anarchist current. [33]
Ramsès Younane moved back to Egypt in 1956. He was editorial secretary
at the RTF, the official French radio and TV broadcasting system. During
the French and British intervention in the Suez crisis, he refused to
transmit a statement attacking Egypt. He met Georges HĂ©nein who, in the
1950s, still frequented Marie Cavadia's salon. There a new generation of
poets gathered to meet HĂ©nein, who they called the "oracle" of this
literary circle.
Before being forced to leave Egypt in 1960, HĂ©nein published a
translation of a poem by Stefano Terra in honor of Malatesta,
illustrated with an automatic drawing by Younane. [34] It is worth
recalling that the famous Italian anarchist fought in Egypt against the
British troops in the 1880s.
It is obvious that Egyptian Surrealism was neither a direct product of
European colonization in Egypt nor a spontaneous generation. It was an
integral part of the history of a country that is an international
crossroads.
But the debate opened by HĂ©nein, engaging art in political protest, was
repeatedly reduced to isolation, threatened and banned, not only by
Egyptian authorities but also by the democratic government of Great
Britain. Whether dictatorships or democracies, states do not tolerate
men and women who challenge their raison d'ĂŞtre. Was Georges Henein
right to write that between democracies and dictatorships there was only
a difference of degree, and not of kind?
With his comrades, Ramsès Younane questioned the practice of
exhibitions, in particular by criticizing the omission of female
artists. A pioneer in art criticism [35], his sociopolitical perspective
excited Arabic-speaking circles in Egypt, and his art contributed to the
development of surrealism in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. [36]
[1] "Limites et Frontières", (Limits and Frontiers), in al-Tatawwur
[Development], 1940. [Translation into French by Ronald Creagh.]
[2] Don LaCoss, "On Blasphemy and Imagination: Arab Surrealism Against
Islam" 2010.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/don-lacoss-on-blasphemy-and-imagination-arab-surrealism-against-islam
(accessed 7/3/2015).
[3] ar-Raghba al-ibahiyya (Libertarian Desire), 1975-? The cover of one
issue was illustrated by our friend André Bernard.
[4] Daniel Lançon, Le Caire (1934-1941): le défi des avant gardes
européennes pour les écrivains égyptiens et pour Georges Hénein en
particulier" (Cairo, 1934-1941: the challenge of the European
avant-garde for Egyptian writers and for Georges HĂ©nein in particular)
in Edith Kunz, Thomas Hunkeler, Les Métropoles des avant-gardes, Genève,
Peter Lang, 2009, pp. 163-174. Citation p. 2.
[5] Broadcast by Egyptian State Broadcasting and published under the
same title in Revue des conférences françaises en Orient, Cairo, [s.n.],
No. 8, October 1937.
[6] Alexandra Dika Seggerman, "Al-Tatawwur (Evolution): An Enhanced
Timeline of Egyptian Surrealism," Dada/Surrealism, 19 (2013), no. 1.
[7] "Le chant des violents, G. Hénein, Ouvres, Poèmes, récits, essais,
articles et pamphlets, (The song of the violent , G. HĂ©nein, Works,
Poems, stories, essays, articles and pamphlets), Denoël, 2006, p. 44
[8] Berto Farhi, "Avant partir" (Before leaving), in Georges HĂ©nein, op
cit, p.20
[9] Georges HĂ©nein, op. Cit., p. 14.
[10] "Fragments du Petit Larousse illustré" (Fragments from the Petit
Larousse illustré) (Dictionary for the use of the bourgeois world)", Un
Effort, no. 51, February 1935.
[11] Patrick Kane, "Art Education and the Emergence of Radical Art
Movements in Egypt: The Surrealists and the Contemporary Arts Group,
1938–1951, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter 2010),
pp. 95-119, passim.
[12] Information provided by Ms. Sylvie Younane (private conversation,
2014).
[13] Nicolas Calas, quoted by Georges HĂ©nein, op. cit., p. 399.
[14] Don LaCoss, "Egyptian Surrealism and Degenerate Art in 1939", The
Arab Studies Journal, vol. XVIII, No. 1, 1 April 2010, p. 78-117.
[15] Marie-Francine Desvaux-Mansour, "Le Surréalisme à travers Joyce
Mansour. Peinture et Poésie, le miroir du désir" (Surrealism through
Joyce Mansour: Painting and Poetry, the mirror of desire", Th.
University of Paris 9 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 5 April 2014, vol. I, p. 42.
[16] "Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendant" (For an independent
revolutionary art), online:
<http://sl.e-monsite.com/2010/06/11/76925279artrevo-pdf.pdf> (accessed
March 13, 2015) Cf. : Arturo Schwarz, André Breton, Trotsky et
l’anarchie (André Breton, Trotsky and Anarchy), edited by Amaryllis
Vassilikioti, Paris, Union Générale d'Editions, 1977.
[17] Pietro Ferrua, "Surréalisme et anarchisme. La collaboration des
surréalistes au Libertaire, organe de la Fédération anarchiste"
(Surrealism and Anarchism: The Collaboration of the Surrealists in
Libertaire, Organ of the Anarchist Federation," in Art and Anarchy:
Proceedings of the Colloquium Ten Years of Radio Libertaire, Paris, May
1991, Via Valeriano & La Vache folle, 1993, 49-67.
[18] Vive l’art dégénéré (Long live degenerate art) [Le Caire], [s.n.],
1938. Long live degenerate art. [Cairo], [s.n.], 1938. This manifesto is
printed on the back of a reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica." The text,
probably written by HĂ©nein, is dated December 22, 1938. The French
version is published in the Revue des conférences françaises en Orient,
Cairo, [s.n.], 2nd year, January 1939.
[19] Don LaCoss, "Art and Liberty: Surrealism in Egypt" in Communicating
Vessels no. 21, Autumn-Winter, 2009-2010, p. 28-33 [Portland: Mutual
Aid].
[20] In a letter of 1947 he said he was "even inclined to growing
sympathy for anarchists, whose attitude, despite all sorts of naivete,
is acceptable, consistent and honest." Letter No. 71, February 22, 1947,
in "Lettres Georges Henein - Henri Colet (1935-1956)," Grandes Largeurs,
Paris, Le Tout sur le Tout, n. 2-3, Autumn-Winter 1981, p. 98
[21] "L'Art dans la mêlée" (Art in the Melee) Revue des conférences
françaises en Orient, no. 24, 15 March 1939, p. 260-272. Citation p.
271. Thirty years later, HĂ©nein added: "The ballot paper is conceived as
the alms democracy pays to the citizen." D. Petite encyclopédie
politique, Seuil, 1969, p. 9.
[22] Curiel was to play a major political role in the Egyptian Communist
Party and then internationally. He was assassinated in Paris in 1978 by
a member of Action française.
[23] Don LaCoss, "Degenerate Art", op. cit.
[24] Kamil el-Telmisany, “Hawla al-Fann al-Manhut,” al-Risala, 28 août
1939. Cité par Don LaCoss, op. cit. [my translation]
[25] Don LaCoss, "Degenerate Art", op. cit.
[26] Sam Bardaouil, "'Dirty, Dark, Loud and Hysteric': The London and
Paris Surrealist Exhibitions of the 1930s and the Exhibition Practices
of the Art and Liberty Group in Cairo," Dada/Surrealism, no. 19, 1
(2013); Don LaCoss, "Surrealism", op. cit.
[27] Don LaCoss, "Surrealism", op. cit.
[28] Ghayat al-Rassam al-Asri, Cairo, 1938. As of this writing I have
found no trace of this work.
[29] Don LaCoss, "Degenerate Art", op. cit.
[30] On some artistic achievements in the suburbs, see, for example,
regarding the Sayyidda Zayabb district, Patrick M. Kane, "Politics,
Discontent and the Everyday in Egyptian Arts, 1938-1966," Ann Arbor, UMI
Dissertation Service, 2007 , p. 120 et seq.
[31] Daniel Lançon. "La France des Égyptiens" (France of the Egyptians),
in Michel Schmitt, Marie-Odile Andrée, La France des écrivains: éclats
d'un mythe (1945-2005), Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2010, p.
27-40. Cit. p. 9.
[32] Don LaCoss, "Degenerate Art", op. cit.
[33] Don LaCoss, "Surrealism", op. cit.; Cf.: Benjamin PĂ©ret, "Haute
fréquence" (High Frequency), May 24, 1951, Le Libertaire, June 7, 1951.
[34] Don LaCoss, a Surrealism", op. cit.
[35] Cf. Andrea Flores, "The Myth of the False: Ramsès Younan's
Post-Structuralism avant la lettre," The Arab Studies Journal, vol. 8/9
No. 2/1 (Fall 2000/Spring 2001) pp. 97 ff.
[36] Narjess D'Outre-ligne, "Surréalisme en Orient," (Surrealism in the
East) Arabica, I, 2.<www.brill>