I was up late one night flipping about the channels and stumbled upon "The Sculpture Diaries" on The Smithsonian Channel. The focus was on the female form in sculpture. The basic ground was covered you know, Venus de Milo and blah blah. But wait a minute- towards the end of the program a darker side of sculpture emerged. The female form was no longer the greek ideal, it was morphed by Hans Bellmer's imagination into disfigured, fragmented doll-women. Surrealist sculpture created to fight the German ideal of beauty during the height of Nazi-ism. Hans had that BAMF quality associated with the Dada movement, heightened more so when he was kicked out of Germany and sought refuge in accepting France. but that wasn't it...
His work also exposed some torturous fantasies. A conglomeration of events including his introduction to a beautiful cousin, attending the opera "Tales of HOFFMAN" by Jaques Offenbach ( in which a man falls in love with a "automaton"), and eventually his union with Unica Zürn ( a physically gorgeous yet mentally distraught surrealist illustrator).
I cannot seem to separate the personal lives of artists with their work- each one highlights the importance of the other. Yet, I would have found his sculptures visually impressive without knowledge of his biography. Grotesque, violent and sexualized life-sized fragments of flesh may cause initial shock and repulsion but after the sting wears away you realize that sometimes people do feel that broken apart. The Venus De Milo looks stoic despite missing both arms, yet Hans Bellmer's sculptures are laid out vulnerably. Despite being surrealist, they manage to be tenfold more relatable.
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