Image by Carlos MartinsOur comrades in the Surrealist Group of Portugal have announced the death of Mario Cesariny, 26th November 2006.
Cesariny has been widely regarded as the leading poet and activist of Portuguese Surrealism since the inception of the Grupo Surrealista de Lisboa in 1947.
Cesariny has been widely regarded as the leading poet and activist of Portuguese Surrealism since the inception of the Grupo Surrealista de Lisboa in 1947.
2 comments:
We're working on an online tribute to Mario Cesariny at EmptyMirrorBooks.com - if you have thoughts, memories, photos or anything else to contribute, please contact us through our website, http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com
Empty Mirror is also home of an extensive tribute to, and resources for, Surrealist poet/artist Ted Joans. Come on over & check it out ~~
all best,
Denise
Dear Denise
As mostly of you certainly remember Mario and I, we organize the international exhibition "Surrealismo e Pintura Fantástica" in Lisbon (December, 1984).(1)
Then I was young and Mario was already ill and tired but when i visited him to challenge him to help me with that project (the larger in participations ever occured in Portugal about Surrealism), he firstly hesitated because he don´t trusted in very young artists since mostly searched him to wink some sort of notoriety. After some further conversations he finally agreed and some months later the exhibition took place at the "Teatro Ibérico", with the cooperation from Edouard Jaguer and the "Phases" mouvement.
However we had some troubles mainly caused by the interference of the responsibles of finantial support for relevant cultural events at the Ministry of Culture. Those responsibles tried to impose some changes on the catalogue conception and mainly with the inclusion of texts and images from other poets and painters not in any way related with Surrealism. I was then in charge to talk with them for getting that finantial support and for sometimes i had to speak loud against these intentions.
The catalogue finally was published and appeared during the exhibition without any sign of censorship but we had to hardly fight against it even a decade after the democratic revolution in 1974.
Most in here(2) and particularly some publishers and those opposed to Surrealism (this intended to be a libertarian mouvement and not only a literary or aesthetical vanguardism) , always tried to obliterate that event and the importance of the catalogue. It was never re-edited and now is rarely found at the antiquaries and old bookstores.
Notes:
(1) Ted Joans was also represented with extracts of letters to André Breton at the b/w Catalogue.
(2) With the exception of a letter i wrote and was published by the weekly "Expresso" and a letter Mario published at the newspaper "Diário de Notícias", these incidents never were mentioned despite the consequences of them even into our own lifes (i was dismissed from the firm i worked in that time and my wife Ana was forced to leave the company where she played as the main actress).
Carlos Martins
calling from Lisbon, Portugal
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