Lot 75 N

Of all the surrealist methods of alienation, the method of brûlage, or burning, developed by Ubac is the most radical. Instead of the artistic process of creation of form, the ‘dissolution’, the gradual or complete destruction of the original, i.e. the negative, takes place here. In a basin of water, the previously exposed glass negative is exposed to great heat and thus changes its chemical composition. The artist then interrupts the destruction process of the (not yet developed but only latently existent) image. It is only developing process that the achieved degree of destruction becomes apparent, the shadowy impression of the motif, which only exists as an idea but has not yet taken shape, becomes apparent. "While, in surrealism, the classic automatic image processes of frottage, decalcomania, cadavre exquis, among others, served to elevate suggestive, previously unseen worlds of forms out of formlessness with the aid of the spontaneity of matter (of colours, water, textures, etc.) or by accident, Ubac’s intention using brûlage was to liquefy forms that had solidified into unconsciousness and to transfer the optical projection of reality, which had been etched with silver salts into the photosensitive layer, into a precrystalline, smudgy, magma- or fire-like state." (Herbert Molderings, Ubac und die Fotografie des Formlosen, in: Adam C. Oellers, Raoul Ubac. Skulpturen. Gemälde. Zeichnungen. Photographien, exhib.cat. Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen i.a., Aachen 1996, p. 31)

A portrait in profile view served as the starting point for the brûlage shown here. Although the moment of representationalism has not yet completely evaporated, the process of dissolution has already progressed to such an extent that the face appears to be disfigured like a mummy. In his essay from 1942 'L'envers de la face' (the other side of the face) Ubac describes the process of brûlage and the role the photographer plays in it: "Technically, all this happens without the intervention of the operator. Matter works independently to bring forth a new image through the destruction of the old one or to make a disappeared image reappear, according to the laws that come into force when fire and water influence another substance. The artist’s hand has only a mediating quality here." (Raoul Ubac, in: Jean Lescure, Exercice de la pureté, Brussels 1942, n.pag)

Ubac applied the brûlage procedure for only a short period of time. The catalogue raisonné by Christian Bouqueret lists 17 Brûlages from the years 1939/1940, among them the present sheet (cat.no. 186, here dated: 1939).