Art Metropole

#04779

What Remains of A Rembrandt Torn Into Four Equal Pieces and Flushed Down The Toilet

Date

1988

Publisher

Hanuman Books

Format

Artists' Books

Details

Softcover

ISBN

0-937815-21-7

Size

7 × 10 × 0.8 cm

Length

79 

French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist Jean Genet (1910 – 1986) was associated with artists and activists such as his mentor Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso and the Black Panthers. This volume features two of Genet’s art essays: Rembrandt’s Secret (‘Le Secret de Rembrandt), 1958 and What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn Into Little Squares All the Same Size and Shot Down the Toilet (Ce qui est resté d’un Rembrandt déchiré en petits carrés), 1967.

This is #22 in the Hanuman small press book series started by the editor/publisher Raymond Foye in collaboration with the Transavanguardia artist Francesco Clemente. Hanuman was the favorite Hindu deity of both men, and they decided to name their press after him. The Hanuman Books series has published works by William Burroughs, Allen Ginsburg, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Jack Kerouac, William de Kooning, Robert Frank and other visionary and countercultural writers and artists. The tiny format of the books — they measure 3” by 4” in size — is based on prayer books in India. They are hand-made in India, where each little book is colored with deeply saturated tones to produce a limited edition.

English translation by Randolph Hough