Documents: banaliteit gevierd in een modernistisch tijdschrift

This article studies the French avant-garde magazine Documents (1929-1931), which was founded by four French intellectuals: Jean Babelon, Georges Bataille, Pierre d'Espezel and Georges Wildenstein. Soon, Bataille became the editor in chief, whereas d'Espezel and Babelon withdrew. The magazine focused on (primitive) art, philosophy and ethnography. Documents reacted to André Breton's surrealism, which Bataille and cooperatives considered too idealistic and naive. They promoted a more materialistic philosophy, called bas matérialisme. A focal point was the formlessness of reality: scientists and... Mehr ...