Bøger af Henri Michaux

Henri Michaux defies common critical definition. Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux "e;genius,"e; and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux's work "e;is without equal in the literature of our time."e; This anthology contains substantial selections from almost all of Michaux's major works, most never before published in English, and allows readers to explore the haunting verbal and pictorial landscape of a twentieth-century visionary.

Allen Ginsberg called Michaux a genius, and Jorge Luis Borges said that his work is without equal in the literature of our time. Henri Michaux (1899-1984) wrote Ideograms in China as an introduction to Leon Chang's La calligraphie chinoise (1971), a work that now stands as an important complement to Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa's classic study, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. Previously available only as a limited edition, Ideograms in China is a long, gorgeously illustrated and annotated prose poem containing a very deep consideration of the world's oldest living language. Poet Gustaf Sobin's luminous English version beautifully captures the astounding and strange French original. For Michaux, the Chinese culture ranked as the world's richest, a culture grounded in its written language, which bound China together through three millennia and across its enormous territories. Ideograms in China presents an oblique history of that culture through the changing variety and beauty of the ideograms: Michaux looks into a dozen scripts--from ancient bronze vessels bearing ku-wen script to running script to standard k'ai-shu characters--and the poem carries the rhythms of someone discovering the soul of a civilization in its impression of ink on paper.

Avant-garde poet Henri Michaux boarded a steamship bound for Ecuador in December 1927 as "a man who knows neither how to travel nor how to keep a journal." He set out to record a journey, but his vivid descriptions, his unexpected leaps of thought, provide a narrative unlike any other. The result, Ecuador: A Travel Journal, is a work of pointed observation and sensual, even hallucinogenic, poetry and prose.>

This selection is from L'Espace du Dedans, which collected eight books of prose poems, sketches and free verse. Brilliantly translated by Richard Ellmann, Michaux asks readers to join him in a fantastic world of the imagination. It is a world where wry humor plays against horror--where Chaplin meets Kafka--a world of pure and rare invention.

Det elendige mirakel fra 1956 markerer starten på en ny periode ibelgieren Henri Michaux’ forfatterskab. Indtil da har han været kendtfor at sidestille en grotesk, brutal humor med en tendentielthovedbrydende brug af eksistentielle og arkaiske motiver og fabulerenderaseringer i moderne versioner af randlitterære former såsom prosadigte, fabler, aforismer og parabler. Således kunne denne bogs beskrivelser af hans ruserfaringer, hans livtag med den hallucinogenfremkaldte ”andentilstand”, synes at udgøre et sært afbræk: Er det forfatteren unpluggednu?! For pludselig skal der jo kommunikeres direkte, ikke flereomskrivninger, ingen figurative gevandter, positurer, eller bådesuggererede og underforståede afstande mellem forfatter og fortæller.Det er ikke så lidt, faktisk, eftersom Michaux i øvrigt gjorde nærmesten dyd ud af at afstå fra medieringer af sit kunstneriske virke, frainterviews, portrætter, fotos, sågar fra litterære priser (nej tak!).Med andre ord negerede han alle de former for synliggørelse og onlineparathed, der i vores samtid helt naturligt, som et krav, som eneksistensberettigelse, synes at følge med et forfatterskab i en grad, så vi er vant til, at selv de erklærede ”døde” forfattere beredvilligtindgår i den offentlige meningsøkonomi og forklarer sig selv og giverderes om aldrig så ironiske besyv med. Mere end det principfaste i sigselv (som også kan være genstand for en rask negation) synes Michaux som menneske at have været overbevist om det velgørende i nejet: nejetsfrisættende kraft, det kategoriale, kategoriske, stædige, asketiske,vrængende, sippede, besværgende, mystiske, uudgrundelige, affirmerende … nej. Derved bliver Michaux’ fem værker skrevet ud fra og om hansruserfaringer, ud over to tidlige rejsebøger, det nærmeste vi kommeregentlig essayistik fra hans hånd: åben indsigt i, hvad han føler,mener, tænker. Og dog, så ligetil er det nu ikke helt.

This fully illustrated catalog accompanies the first exhibition curated by Brett Gorvy for the Lévy Gorvy gallery in New York. The exhibition features nearly one hundred artworks by twenty-seven artists, including Lee Bontecou, Bruce Conner, Joseph Cornell, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly and Hannah Wilke. Documenting masterpieces that are rarely on public display, the publication offers a unique perspective on viewership and collecting. An essay by Suzanne Hudson examines works by Johns, Ryman and Twombly, while Sarah K. Rich considers the use of hallucinogens to break down boundaries within the self. A new translation of an excerpt from Henri Michaux's Infinite Turbulence offers a window into the mind of an artist on mescaline. Miranda Mellis' work of short fiction "The Emissaries" conjures a dystopian narrative that beautifully responds to works by Bellmer, Conner, Dubuffet and Rama, and Pablo Neruda's poem "Ode to Things" accompanies reproductions of works by Cornell.

Henri Michaux (1899-1984), the great French poet and painter, set out as a young man to see the Far East. Traveling from India to the Himalayas, and on to China and Japan, Michaux voices his vivid impressions, cutting opinions, and curious insights: he has no trouble speaking his mind. Part fanciful travelogue and part exploration of culture, A Barbarian in Asia is presented here in its original translation by Sylvia Beach, the famous American-born bookseller in Paris.

Three never-before-translated books from Henri Michaux from the period of his mescaline experimentation, with drawings by the author and Matta.