DC's

* (restored)

 

‘When I interviewed Urs Allemann about his book Babyfucker in the spring of 2010, my family was outraged, and understandably so. Less than a month had passed since my mother divorced her husband, my stepfather of twenty years, after discovering that he had lived a secret life for almost the entire extent of the marriage, including sexually abusing my older sister throughout her childhood. It was not that my family opposed the idea of a book like Babyfucker so much as they could not understand why I would ever willingly associate myself with the words “baby” and “fucker,” especially only eleven months after learning about my sister’s abuse. Their approach was to get over “it” as quickly as possible. However, I was not so sure that this was something I wanted to move beyond; I didn’t want “it” to lose its shock value.

‘Excessive books like Babyfucker elicit excessive reactions. Excess, here, can be defined as that which is more than necessary, or desirable. Not only is the act of “babyfucking” an extremely rare occurrence in the realm of sexual abuse, the setting of the book is also excessive. In fact, it is all but impossible to imagine, except, perhaps, as a bad acid trip. The book opens: “I fuck babies. Around my bed there are creels. They’re swarming with babies. They’re all here. Always have been. Always will be.” As Allemann noted in our interview, “These sentences have no place in a realistic story [and] definitively exceed every notion of reality that claims to be adequate to reality.” More specifically, the last two “create a context that corresponds perfectly to the timeless present of the sentence ‘I fuck babies.’” As I was all too aware, nothing can be as it has “always been, always will be.”

‘Excessive responses to the book typically range from horror, disgust, and outrage to that other extreme, extreme insouciance, or denial, embodied by those who shrug off the very idea that they could be shocked by a book, no matter its content. A popular reaction to Babyfucker: “The author is merely trying to shock. So what?” However, if shocking behavior, i.e., writing something shocking, is nothing more than a shameless attempt to get attention, it is also an individual’s desperate attempt to be recognized, to be seen or heard. Allemann has suggested that the narrator of Babyfucker has lost the “certainty that he exists” and attempts “to catapult himself back into existence with an extreme sentence.” In this sense, I imagine the narrator as a kind of fanatic, stammering to himself in the desolate abyss of a dank attic, driven not by any specific appetite or longing, but by the absolute conviction that if he ceases, even for a second, to utter his sentence (“I fuck babies”), the very narrative of his life with dissolve, and he will be left only with the excessive frustration and confusion of his suffering.

‘The Babyfucker is helpless. His “extreme sentence,” and his belief in the power of it, is a kind of cure for his excessive vulnerability. That is, the vulnerability we all experience as animals who cannot easily identify what we want, and even if we can identify it, may not be able to get it, much less keep it. Worse: we may discover that desire, and its twin suffering, no matter how excessive, may lead us nowhere. “I fuck babies” is the narrator’s conviction, his fact, safe haven, which is to say, also a fantasy. One he must return to again and again, not because it gives him any identifiable pleasure, but because it keeps him hopeful in his very uncertain and meaningless world.

‘When I found Babyfucker—or rather when it found me—I was still actively grappling with the significance, perhaps even “meaning,” of the wild, roving ache I felt on a daily basis as a result of the dissolution of my family. Of course, during these months, I wrote next to nothing. (It was unfortunate that I was enrolled in an MFA program for creative writing.) As an avid reader, I was also horrified to discover that no book could hold my attention: they all felt so trivial. Every book, except Babyfucker. Since my pain was still too ripe, I could not dismiss it as “just a book” or “some pervert’s riff.” I was immediately intrigued by the beauty, the hypnotic elegance, of Allemann’s prose. It’s true: the thing I found most interesting, initially, was not that Babyfucker served as a potent reminder of the “power of literature,” but rather, that “monstrosity can’t be beautified away by skillful prose pirouettes” (Allemann). That is—no amount of gloss or spin can sublate the horror of a monstrous act.’ — Elizabeth Hall

 

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Further

Urs Allemann @ Wikipedia
Babyfucker @ goodreads
Three Books Blurring the Borders of Memory and Reality
Babyfucker Blog Project: Jessalyn Wakefield
Babyfucker Blog Project: J.A. Tyler
Babyfucker Blog Project: Lily Hoang
Babyfucker Blog Project: M. Kitchell
Babyfucker Blog Project: Jon R.
The Old Man and the Bench – Urs Allemann
Urs Allemann’s Beginnings
Wüst gedacht, brav gemacht
Buy ‘Babyfucker’

 

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A FURTHER READING OF URS ALLEMANN’S BABYFUCKER (WITH DRIPPING FAUCET) Concerto No3 for 2-7 Voices

Created by Daniele Pantano & David Kelly/Erkembode for Enemies of the North

First public screening: 30 March 2013, The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK

Words/Sounds: Daniele Pantano
Visuals: David Kelly/Erkembode

 

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Extras

Urs Allemann bei Sprachsalz 2011

Urs Allemann zu Gast bei Züri Littéraire im Kaufleuten

Freemix la segunda (Urs Allemann, Suiza)

 

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Interview
from Tarpaulin Sky

 

What prompted you to write Babyfucker? Did it start as an idea, a sentence, question, challenge?

It wasn’t an idea. It was an image. An image in my head. A vexing image. An image that was just suddenly there. Without reminding me of anyone or anything. Without eliciting any feeling in me. That’s what was vexing. A challenge. And then suddenly the sentence was there. As a response to the image? As an escape? As self-defense? I don’t know. “I fuck babies.” And then there was the decision to attempt to extract something like a story from this terrible sentence.

Your prose is often hypnotic. Babyfucker evokes its own associative logic by which words generate further words, creating a dazzling rhythmic trip. Yet the beauty of your prose is offset by the disturbing nature of the text. Everything hinges on the monstrous “I fuck babies.” Why did you choose that sentence specifically?

I’m very happy to hear you use the word “beauty” to describe my prose. Because, as strange as it may seem, it was in fact my intention to make something beautiful out of this monstrous material. To write a beautiful story. In this anything but obvious intention a certain idea played a role: the idea that beauty as an aesthetic category can only have relevance today if it passes the endurance test represented by the most un-beautiful, revolting material thinkable. I had the somewhat megalomaniacal idea that I could transform shit into gold by writing. And there was the quite crazy corollary idea: only gold made from shit is true gold.

Ten years after Babyfucker I wrote an ode titled “Censure.” It opens with the verse “The black bar in front of the sex organ.” And the first verse of the second strophe reads: “The axe that – chop now! – that shatters beautifully in your hand.” There’s a similar crazy notion at work here: the notion that a murder weapon is transformed into its opposite in the last second, before the deadly blow, right when the axe holder is ordered to act. The axe, it is claimed, doesn’t just shatter, no, it even shatters “beautifully.” Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Few concrete details are given about the narrator or his surroundings. The reader must navigate the narrator’s grunts, groans, stutters, and mumbles. He repeats “O I am babbling.” It’s unclear whether his activities are a fantasy, dream, real-life telling, or all three, all at once. The instability of the narrator’s mental world mimics the physical world he perceives. Was the structure of the text set from the first draft or did it come to you through the writing process itself?

The character, the first person narrator only has one thing: his sentence. The problem with the sentence – beside the fact that it’s monstrous – is that it has no context. The only thing that the narrator does, and he does it incessantly, is this: he attempts to invent something like a context for this context-less sentence. Not to remember, but to invent. Babbling away, he produces and discards his “reality.” It’s meaningless to decide in this context whether something is a dream, a fantasy, or reality. Reality is simply what is narrated. And what’s narrated is only what could correspond to the sole certainty that is alleged to exist: “I fuck babies.” The “few concrete details” that the narrator tosses us are, at closer examination, just as fantastic as his grotesque hallucinations.

Take the very first sentences in the narrative. Sentence one: “I fuck babies.” The foundational sentence. The theme. The challenge. A sentence that isn’t just monstrous, but also fantastic. A sentence that no living person could ever say. The verb’s timeless present and the noun’s plural make the sentence one of trans-real monstrosity.

Sentence two: “Around my bed there are creels.” An attempt to invent a place for the first sentence where either A) the sentence is spoken; B) the narrated event occurs ; or C) the sentence is spoken AND the narrated event occurs. This sentence, read by itself, in version A, might be a “true story.” A realistic story could begin in this way: a real man lies on a real bed surrounded by real creels. For reasons that we expect to learn in the course of the story, the man utters THE monstrous sentence: “I fuck babies.”

Sentence three: “They’re crawling with babies.” This sentence has no place in a realistic story. A situation in which four creels surround a bed and in which each of these creels “crawls with babies” cannot occur in reality. CANNOT occur. A baby in each creel, ok. Two babies? Maybe, whatever. Three babies? Oh come on, stop already. Four babies? Shut up, you idiot. What does exist is: cans that crawl with worms (on fishing boats). But creels that crawl with babies? Definitely not.

But what if they were there, these babies? Dozens of them? Twelve in every creel? Ok, we are prepared to picture the impossible and against our better judgment accept the assurance offered by sentence four: “They’re all there.” But sentences five and six finally, definitively exceed every notion of reality that claims to be adequate to reality. “Always have been. Always will be.” These sentences create a context that corresponds perfectly to the timeless present of the sentence “I fuck babies.” In reality however NOTHING always has been and NOTHING is for always.

I don’t know if that’s an answer to your question. Hopefully it is. Reality is annulled after six sentences. At that point one can no longer distinguish “from the first draft” and “through the writing process itself.”

The narrator is someone who has lost his identity, is unsure if he even exists. There is the hint of a Linda and a Paul, but their reality is tenuous: “Linda. What if she asked me to substitute a stuffed dog for the dog. If she asked me something. Anything. Could I then claim she exists.” Throughout the text, the narrator struggles to regain his existence through his sentence: “I fuck babies. Therefore I am, maybe.” Repetition-as-comfort. He relies on his sentence to save him, yet by the end, he is unsure whether “I fuck babies” was ever “his” to begin with: “And what if its a mistake. A mix-up. What if I’ve been saying that Paul’s sentence the whole time. Because someone somewhere put in the wrong tape for me.” Can you talk a little about your intentions here?

That’s correct: the narrator has been afflicted with a feeling of total derealization. The world’s presentness, the existence of others, his own existence: nothing is guaranteed for him. Only one terrifying sentence – “I fuck babies” – is vested beyond any doubt for him with the reality index that the cogito had for Descartes. That’s why it’s “his” sentence. That’s why he clings to it as if it could save him and catapult him into existence. AS IF – that is the decisive point. It’s IMPOSSIBLE that a sentence like “I fuck babies” can help bring a human being into existence. Because it is necessarily an UNTRUE sentence. The person for whom it would be a true sentence – if we want to admit for a moment that such a creature exists – someone who would actually “fuck babies” serially, on a conveyor belt, many of them one after the other, many times a day: such a person would NEVER SAY this sentence.

To whom for heaven’s sake would he say it? On what occasion? For what reason? When the narrator says, “And what if it’s a mistake,” he begins to realize that “his” sentence, despite the index of reality it bears for him, might be the wrong sentence. He begins to realize this. He has already begun to realize this when he arrives at this “maybe” conclusion: “I fuck babies. Therefore I am maybe.” But it’s no more than the beginning of a realization. The narrator doesn’t get any further. It’s not even possible for him to pose a question about what problems the phenomenon of the “untrue sentence with reality index” might cause for understanding. WE, you and I, can of course come up with some thoughts about it. An idea might be: the sentence is not the thing that is vested with the reality index. Instead, it adheres to the sentence’s components, the individual words. To the fact that they come together in a constellation. It’s enough that a sentence occurs to the narrator (that a sentence is foisted on him) that brings together “I,” “fuck,” and “babies” – and that’s enough for the feeling of security – secure because it promises something like reality – to come about for him. But it’s also imaginable that the sentence “I fuck babies” connects the CORRECT words in a grammatically INCORRECT way. False presence. False plural. False voice (active instead of passive). And who would be responsible for the narrator’s blunder or parapraxis? Well, me of course, the author. Maybe I put the wrong tape in for him. Maybe on purpose.

Can you discuss the influence of Beckett on Babyfucker, and your writing as a whole?

I read Beckett intensively ten or twelve years before I wrote Babyfucker. But Beckett’s prose – the novels more than anything, and The Unnameable more than any other – has remained the non plus ultra of modern narration for me. Modern in an emphatic sense. Narrating as not narrating. No narrative as narrating in quotation marks. No “I,” no place, no time. Only this tentative speaking and writing movement that hints at a speaker, a place, a time only to immediately revoke them, hint again, and again revoke them. This tracing out of a trail left behind by a successive writing down and crossing out, by a crossed out writing down and a writing down crossed out. This textual tracing that is NOTHING (thus: “Texts for Nothing”), and, yet, no, absolutely NOT NOTHING. The incomparable, inimitable about Beckettian blackness is: this black is not just the blackness of a message, as black as it may be. It’s more that this black meaning turns into a black syntax. Into a meandering of sentences knotted together. Into a flowing, branching out, uprooted, blocked rush of black sentences. Phew. Such abominably imprecise metaphors! Sorry, Ms. Hall.

When Babyfucker won the second prize in the 1991 Ingborg Bachmann Competition, the book became one of the biggest literary scandals in recent years. Specifically, Jörg Haider claimed that the text was “inexcusable” and a “sexual perversion.” Were you surprised that many misinterpreted the book, focusing on the title rather than the subject matter? Has your view shifted over the years?

Here we are again with the contradiction of “beauty” and “monstrosity.” I really thought that everyone would clap and say: this author does such a wonderful job of making us forget how dreadful his topic really is. The aforementioned shit-gold-thing. That was A) naïve of me; B) but also a misjudgment of the text. Perhaps I even underestimated the “Babyfucker” by minimizing for myself the antagonism between beauty and monstrosity. Monstrosity can’t be beautified away by skillful prose pirouettes. Beauty doesn’t sublate monstrosity. And today I understand much better those people who find that there’s nothing beautiful there, nothing at all, just a triumph of monstrosity. However: the fact that there were people who read the text in all seriousness as “Confessions from the Life of a Pedophile” – that baffles me to this day.

How did you get involved in writing? As a young writer what books were especially influential? What texts do you continue to revisit?

I’ve always written. But intermittently, with long breaks. At first, poems and plays (when I was eight or nine). Then poems again (at sixteen, seventeen: Celan imitations, with poorly measured doses of obscenity). Then once an isolated prose text, under the influence of Proust: “An Attempt by Martin T. to Remember.” Then poems again (at twenty-five, twenty-six: undoubtedly imitations, I just don’t know anymore what of). Then during a long stay in Tuscany in 1978-1979 once again an isolated prose text: “The Condition of Mö or What and how a Story” (now, instead of Proust, Finnegan’s Wake, a book that, unlike the Recherche, I never read). I’ve only written regularly (more or less) since 1983. 1983-1988: poems. 1988-1995: prose. 1999-2010: poems.

I read most enthusiastically (idiotic superlative!) Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Beckett. And as far as poets go: Benn, Rilke (despite everything), and, more than anything, Hölderlin. And not to forget the “experimentalists”: Ernst Jandl, Oskar Pastior. Right now I’m reading Kleist.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’d like to return to prose after a fifteen-year hiatus. An epistolary novella maybe. A man went into the mountains fifteen years ago to write the following letter to a woman: “Dear B., I’d like to strike you down with an iron rod. Maybe I love you. If you feel the same way and your wishes conform to mine, then please please get in touch with me posthaste. We’ll discuss this matter together and make the necessary arrangements if everything works out. With warm wishes, Your Bernd.” The letter is, however, never mailed and never written. In further letters to B. from Bernd, he pursues, among other things, the question: why? The last letter could be the one in which Bernd lets B. know that the matter has been settled since he has just been struck down by a group of women with iron rods.

 

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Book

Urs Allemann Babyfucker
les figues

‘A Beckettian character, who may or may not be trapped in a room with four baskets full of infants, focuses obsessively on a single sentence—“I fuck babies.” This virtuoso text by Swiss experimental writer Urs Allemann won the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Preis des Landes Kärnten in 1991 and caused one of the biggest literary scandals in the post-1945 German-speaking world. Translated now for the first time in a new-bilingual edition, Babyfucker will change your idea of what literature can be and do. Babyfucker belongs in the canon of twentieth-century provocations that includes Bataille’s The Story of the Eye, Delany’s Hogg, and Cooper’s Frisk.’ — les figues

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Excerpt

I fuck babies. Around my bed there are creels. They’re swarming with babies. They’re all here. Always have been. Always will be. Like me. I’m here too. For others it would probably be different. Others would leave. Would have come. Would go somewhere. Have come from somewhere. Not us. We’re here. The babies in their creels. Me in my bed. With closed eyes. Reach into the swarm. Fish one out. Fuck it. Throw it back to the others. All of them naked. All of them here. No names. At night everyone sleeps. Me. The babies. Linda. All is calm. During the day the babies get fucked. Always been that way. By me. Before going to sleep. After waking up. The babies here. Me here. Linda not here. All the lightless day long.

Sometimes I catch a male. Sometimes a female. O it doesn’t matter. Ring finger and pinkie span the flesh notch. The flap of skin can be hidden between my thumb and pointer. It’s all very chaste in my garret. Scraping. Rubbing. I want to write a chaste story. Middle finger. Bumhole. Fontanels. Their toothless, salivating mouths. Where do I penetrate. Where do I slide right in. Their pores flung open to me. My chaste ambition. With closed eyes. Feeling my way. Conquering. Every baby pore a hole for life. I want to write a story about holes for life. The babies sleep. Not only at night. During the day too. When I fuck them. They used to always scream. Now they’re always sleeping. Some other time. It just doesn’t work without any time. I mix a little morphine into their milk. Males. I’m a man. The babies get the bottle from me. Females. It just doesn’t work without any difference. The babies would be breastfed by a woman. From one of two breasts. From both. From neither. O I take that back. But how would the woman mix the morphine into the milk. Maybe it would be injected into her swollen breasts. Into both of them. Into neither. Into one. O I take that back. But where do I get the milk. There appears to be a milk spigot in my garret. It just doesn’t work without any cause without any reason. My head. I could hold my head under the milk spigot. Until. But where do I get the morphine. There appears to be a vat of morphine in my garret. A barrel of morphine. With morphine powder. With morphine brew. My torso. I could roll around in the morphine powder. I could dip my morphine-tossed body in the morphine brew. Until the day. Instead I soak babies. Drug them. Fuck them. Sleeping babies. Haven’t been screaming babies for a long time.

Just as long as none of them die on me. Just as long as Linda doesn’t die on me. Just as long as I don’t die on myself.

All is bright. Once a day the babies are cleaned. Before the fucking that follows the cleaning. After the fucking that precedes the cleaning. By me. Always been that way. I spray them down creel by creel. With lukewarm water. The hose is permanently attached to the water spigot. It would not be advantageous to attach it to the milk spigot. It would not be advantageous to hose down the babies with milk. The milk might go bad. The babies might start to stink. I might possibly be forced by the stink to puke. O it wouldn’t help at all to fling open the windows. How often do I fling open the windows. Without any success. Fresh air refuses to rush into my garret. Stuffy air refuses to rush out of my garret. The cinema outside. The fresh breeze of the movie. Reality inside. Life’s old chamber farts. The babies are drugged with milk. Sprayed clean with water. I drink water. Bathe in the morphine vat. Linda. A word that calls to mind wells trees songs graves. Makes me want to puke. To puke in the well. To puke on the grave. O I won’t puke though. Will eat something though. But what. Maybe some frogs. From where. From the bucket. How did they get in there. They didn’t. They are there. Flourishing. Ribbiting. They would have to be drugged with morphine brew morphine powder. Ribbiting. Jumping into my mouth. Ribbiting. Ribbiting. Can’t be swallowed. Secreting my saliva. Sitting in my saliva. Wallowing in it. They’re inedible. Immortal. Ribbiting.

I fuck babies. Therefore, maybe, I am.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hey. I debated giving Bargain Bin Blasphemy its own post, so tempting. I did find that excerpt from that manga very interesting. I’ll put the totality on my wish list and will keep my eyes peeled. Thanks much for that, pal. ** Adem Berbic, I knew Peter Christopherson and, cover your eyes, he really did believe in that stuff. But one invents what sublimity is and then reaches for it, no? I don’t think of sublimity as pre-existing and solid. That probably comes from my younger drug use too, but for me it was the great demystifier LSD. Again, barriers are one’s own invention and what constitutes breaking through as well. I don’t know. I guess my suspicion is re: roundly agreed upon definitions. That’s a helluva great sentence indeed. ** Laura, Hi. Jesse actually showed up here yesterday. Yeah, I know zero about the Islamic occult arts or pretty much every occult art. Interesting to read about, thank you, although it’s a world that my mind usually tends to bounce off like a red rubber ball. I saw your eyes from a distance in that photo but they were in competition with the rest of you. Well, blasphemy posits disbelief as a template for belief? I’d need to think about the Hegel filterers as it’s still morning with mid-level concentration. Uh, I guess I must like when that happens, right? That’s logical. ** _Black_Acrylic, You were in fact being fully clever in my book, sir. ** Carsten, The doctor’s reasoning makes sense, and he’s a doctor, and it’s one of those situations where you have to believe that means something. Luck, man. Oh, granted I’m a lifelong atheist with no pony in the game, but I like how death metal excoriates religion. I assume if you grow up with that stuff hanging over your head it does become a kind of fascism that naturally inspires hostility. Plus I like the theater and ferocity. I like how it empurples the prose. I like it in Bunuel and Sade for the same reason, I guess. But I’m a window shopper re: all that stuff. ** fish, Hi. I too have no religion in me at all and never have. Churches just seemed like assisted living facilities to me as a kid. But I guess I find it interesting in art in the sense that it’s one of the big buttons you can push and drive people crazy. I’m sort of interested in seeing how artists push that button. ** julian, Good question. Maybe they don’t like the idea that Jesus would taste good if you ate him? I haven’t actually heard of ‘Him’. I’ll see what I can find. I am interested in ambitious 70s porn. Yes, ‘Guide’ the novel is, among other things, a sigil that has a specific goal/wish, which of course I can’t reveal because that would be the sigil’s killer. I guess I can say that it didn’t work, or at least not yet. I’ll see if I have an image or so of ‘Chris’ in my ‘TMS’ files. It seems like I must. ** Steeqhen, It seems like you’re saying the colostomy itself went okay, so that’s good. I always believe that if you start believe that you have that much impact on other people the only result is personal misery. Other people are too complex and private to read. I’m not religious at all, like I’ve said, but becoming religious seems like accepting a generality as a truth, and I can’t buy that. Thanks for the clarity on steroids. Ixnay on the anabolic. ** HaRpEr //, No, I mean Artaud is a very brilliant writer. It’s just a taste thing. He’s too exclamatory for me. Yes, I do agree about the My New Band Believe record. It’s quite something and quite unexpected based on his part in black midi. ** Jesse Bransford, Dude, how great to see you! That post is most certainly still alive and kicking based on the output it inspires and the traffic it accrued. That’s so wild that ‘Guide’ was a directive for you in your work. That’s a serious honor for it and me. Wow. We have to find a way to have a real lengthy sit down and catch up one of the near days. I miss you. That would be so awesome. You ever come over to Paris? Love, me. ** Steve, True, but religious people with their hair triggers are such tempting sitting ducks, I guess. I hope the community radio station recognises a gift horse when they’re offered one. I just read somewhere yesterday that Camron Picton likes my work. That completely blows my mind as you can imagine. ** kenley, Yay, the post has found its true blue fan. Now it can skulk off into the past knowing it made a mark. Understood about the envy of the comforted religious people, but they’re such limited people to talk to in most cases, in my experience, and I guess I prefer my confusion to being so easily compartmentalised or something. And I think I’d probably still be confused if I believed anyway. Who knows though. That album does sound very intriguing. Thanks! I’ll go listen to it in a bit. Seems like a total find. Montreal does sound pretty interesting on balance. It sounds a little like Paris but without the welcome ‘live and let live’ vibe over here. I hope the noise in that backyard was sufficiently harsh. ** Hugo, Sneezing blood gets you a hall pass for sure. I’ve never read The Bible. It’s like Proust. I totally get why that tension re: MJ interests you. I mean it is inherently very interesting. I guess for me there are too many people out there interested in him and that stuff, and I trust them to pass along their findings and speculations to a degree that satisfies whatever interest I have. ** Uday, Hi! That’s okay, wholly understood. And I’ve gotten to deal with you a bit outside the blog. But welcome back, and I’ll see if I can get this place to rivet you. xo. ** rewritedept, Hi. The artist doing the graphic novel is Sylvain Bordesoules. He’s had a few graphic novels published in France. He’s very good. My New Band Believe is very different than black midi. I remember thinking ‘Get Out’ was really good until the disappointing last quarter or third. I liked ‘EEAAO’. Maybe a little overrated, but pretty interesting that it was such a success. ** Right. I’ve (re)turned on the blog’s spotlight that once fell on Urs Allemann’s notorious and quite excellent novella. Know it? If not, you can. See you tomorrow.

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Emer Roberts Child and Rat (2010)
‘There could perhaps be no better (or worse, depending on your religious inclination) day to open a blasphemous art exhibition than Good Friday. As many Irish Catholics were dutifully attending church, a group of young, well-dressed Dubliners gathered in the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art to view an exhibition inspired by the country’s new — and much loathed — antiblasphemy law. The first artwork to greet the visitors to “Blasphemous” is a grotesque variation on Michelangelo’s Pieta, with the Virgin Mary transformed into a malicious giant rat.

 

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Derek Murphy Various (2010)
‘There are many people who think I’m the slime of the earth, a hack, a blasphemer, and that I’ll burn in Hell for my iniquity (seriously, they’ve told me so). The truth is that, since studying theology and comparative religion, and then getting my MA and PHD in Literature and Art History, I’m profoundly interested in the delineation and boundaries of belief systems, and how they interact with contemporary, technologically advanced culture.’

 

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Artem Loskutov Icons (2012)
‘The prosecutor’s office of Novosibirsk has officially opened up a criminal case against street artist and activist Artem Loskutov for blasphemy and hate speech offenses after Artem illegally swapped out some street advertisements with his mock icons of Pussy Riot. He was nabbed for leaving his fingerprints on the Pussy Riot icons. When asked how his fingerprints got on the unauthorized street art, Artem replied: “It was a miracle of God.”’

 

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Arahmaia-ni Feisal Lingga-Yoni (1994)
‘When Indonesian artist Arahmaia-ni Feisal first exhibited Lingga-Yoni, she received death threats. Against scrawled Arabic script, the 1994 artwork showed a vermillion red phallus and forest green vulva. They were the ‘lingam’ and ‘yoni’ of the title: representations of gods in pre-Islamic Java. Feisal was condemned as blasphemous by Islamic hardliners. Afraid for her life, she fled to Perth. For years, Feisal believed her most seminal work lost or destroyed. It had, in fact, been moved abroad. Now, for the first time, Lingga-Yoni is back in Indonesia. Not only that. Today it hangs on the walls of the newly-opened Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara or Museum MACAN.’

 

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Adel Abdessemed Décor (2012)
‘For Décor, Abdessemed borrowed the image of Christ crucified from Mattias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, a devotional work created for a monastic hospital of the Order of Saint Anthony. In its original context this image of Christ served to both comfort and humble patients by reminding them of Christ’s suffering. Abdessemed draws upon this theme with his use of industrial grade razor wire, which imbues the work with a visceral prompt for searing pain. As a sculptural group of four identical figures, the artist denies us a focal point, and furthermore emphasizes his objectification of the image through his use of the title Décor. In so doing Abdessemed has reduced one of the most sacred of holy representations in the life of Christ to serialized ornamentation.’

 

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SimulaM I Am Jesus Christ (2019)
‘The description reads: “I Am Jesus Christ is a realistic simulator game inspired by the stories from the New Testament of the Bible. Get into old times and follow the same path of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. The game is covering the period from the Baptizing of Jesus Christ and to the Resurrection. Have you ever wondered [what it would be like] to be like Him – one of the most powerful and privileged people in the world. Are you ready to fight with Satan in the desert, exorcising demons and curing sick people, or calm the storm in the sea.”‘

 

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Manish Harijan The Rise of Collateral (2012)
‘The acclaimed Nepali painter Manish Harijan’s exhitbition titled The Rise of Collateral in Siddhartha Art Gallery (Patan, Nepal) was charged with blasphemy by the group of World Hindu Federation activists. The author and gallerist were even threatened with death. The police, instead of providing protection, padlocked the gallery. More to that, there is actual legal action against the artist and curator on charges of blasphemy.’

Real Buddha

108 Gods

Laying with Bhairav

Super Nataraj

 

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Hogre ECCE HOMO ERECTUS (2019)
‘A vile poster depicting Jesus as a sodomite and pedophile has appeared outside Rome’s Museum of Modern Art. Titled “ECCE HOMO ERECTUS,” the poster leaves little to the imagination. It shows a depiction of Jesus stands before a boy kneeling in prayer, with a hand on the boy’s head. An erection protrudes from beneath the depiction’s garment, right in front of the young boy’s face.

‘Pontius Pilate uttered the words “Ecce homo,” “Behold the man” (John 19:5), when he presented Jesus to the jeering crowd after Jesus had been flogged and given a crown of thorns. The poster artist, who signs his name “Hogre,” has taken Pilate’s poignant proclamation and added erectus in order to present Christ not as the one who suffered for our sins and carried them to the Cross, but as a sexual being who preys upon boys.

‘When the same poster was first displayed at bus stops around Rome in June 2017, the artist was arrested and charged with blasphemy and faced a fine of up to 5,000 euros or a prison sentence of up to two years.’

 

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Robert Gober Untitled (1995–1997)

 

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Enrique Chagoya The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals (2010)
‘In 2010 a crowbar-wielding Christian woman destroyed a lithograph titled “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals.” Critics of the piece saw a buxom Jesus receiving oral sex from a man. The artist Enrique Chagoya said the piece was meant to “critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions” and to comment on the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal. The attacker, who was charged with criminal mischief, allegedly screamed, “How can you desecrate my Lord?” before tearing the print at a Colorado art museum.’

 

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Soasig Chamaillard Various (2015 – 2018)

Jeans Marie

Holy Water

 

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Wim Delvoye Various (2007 – 2013)

Tractor, 2008

Twisted Dump Truck, 2013

Concrete Mixer, 2007

Dump Truck, 2013

 

______________
Sebastian Errazuriz Christian Popsicles (2012)
‘Chilean-born Errazuriz created 100 popsicles made of frozen holy wine­, which served both as artwork and as cocktail refreshment during the 2012 show the exhibition Love It or Leave It at Gallery R’Pure. Once consumed, the Popsicle revealed a wooden stick shaped like a cross with a Christ positioned on it.For added holiness, the popsicles were brought into a church in a cooler and blessed inadvertently by the priest during the Eucharist. The work, meant to address religious fanaticism, went on to be heavily criticized by the Catholic League, which called Errazuriz “a bigot, a hypocrite, and a rip-off artist.”’

 

______________
Dorota Nieznalska Pasja (2002)
‘The controversial part of ‘Pasja’ is a cross with a photograph of male genitals on it. After the piece had been shown in Gdansk in 2002, the TVN channel broadcast an extensive material on it. Few days after the exhibition ended, the gallery was visited by a group of MPs from the League of Polish Families (an ultra right-wing political party). Under threat of using physical force, the MPs demanded that the work be shown to them, later on, they reported to the public prosecutor’s office in Gdansk that a crime had been committed. Nieznalska was accused of ‘offending religious beliefs of other people, that is Catholics, by publicly insulting […] the object of worship through placing a photograph of female genitals on a Christian symbol – the cross[…]’.

On an Internet portal ‘trojmiasto.pl’, some anonymous members of Mlodziez Wszechpolska (nationalist youth group) threatened that they would ‘hang such artists’ and ‘shave their heads, like the Home Army did with women who were in close relationships with Germans’.

‘Polish government sentenced Dorota Nieznalska because her work “offends religious beliefs”. The artist has been forbidden to leave the country and sentenced to six months of penal labor. How can any artist possibly be sentenced for his or her work?! We live in a country of Inquisition and repression, where ideas and artistic visions of individuals are being persecuted! How should we protest against such Inquisition of the government? Are we to organize a protest march? Or perhaps some more exhibitions, this time deliberately offensive and controversial? How can we speak out about our disagreement with the Dark Ages-verdict of the judges?!’

 

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Juan Davila Holy Family (1985)
‘A Queensland university art gallery says it will not remove an obscene painting of Mary, the mother of Jesus, despite any outcry from church groups. Holy Family by Melbourne artist Juan Davila depicts Mary cradling a giant penis, in the style of the famous Michelangelo sculpture The Pieta.’

 

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Bargain Bin Blasphemy Various (2008 – 2013)

 

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Lakhveer Azad Teresa (2015)

 

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Emiliano Paolini & Rita Marianela Perelli Cake (2018)
‘From May 24 to 28, 2018, the Contemporary Art Festival of Argentina (Feria de Arte Contemporanea de Argentina – FACA) took place in Buenos Aires. Two Argentinian “artists” – Emiliano Paolini and Rita Marianela Perelli – made a cake in the shape of Our Lord Jesus Christ as part of their exhibition.

‘When the Minister of Culture of Buenos Aires, Enrique Avogrado, passed by his exhibition, Paolini, first row below at left, made a mockery of the Holy Eucharist, inviting the Minister, second from the left, and the President of the Festival, third, to come and eat the body of Christ. The blasphemous mockery was received with smiles and both accepted slices of the cake to eat, above and below second row.

‘Catholics from Argentina became indignant – we compliment them for this good reaction – and are promoting a petition asking for the resignation of Avogrado. At this moment the petition counts 28,000 signatures. You may add your protest by signing the petition here.

‘The two “artists” have a long list of blasphemies in their repertoire, as you can witness from the sixth to the tenth rows below. Among many others is their representation of Our Lady of Lujan, Patroness of Argentina, as a Barbie doll. Given this continuous agenda of blasphemies, we wonder whether they are Satanists.’

 

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Andrea Saltini INRI (2024)
‘A painting that appears to show an act of oral sex being performed on the lifeless figure of Christ prompted fierce controversy when it was unveiled earlier this month as part of an exhibition in a deconsecrated church near Modena, Italy. Outraged worshippers described the work by artist Andrea Saltini as “blasphemous” and more than 30,000 signed a petition calling for the show to be closed.

‘The dispute reached a dramatic conclusion on Thursday (28 March), when a masked individual entered the Museo Diocesano—the museum in the former Church of Sant’Ignazio in Carpi where the exhibition is taking place—and slashed the painting, as well as covering it with black spray paint. Saltini, who was present at the time, approached the unidentified vandal and tried to stop him. The artist was struck on his neck with the blade before the aggressor fled the scene, according to Italian media reports.’

 

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Chainsaw Filthy Blasphemy (2017)
‘Unusual, but great vocals drenched in hatred. Goddamn, the guitarist shakes some seriously evil sounding riffs out of his sleeve which even reinforces the impression that there is no time to lose, not even to take a breath. There is just a driving force that’ll push you to listen to the whole record in one go while leaving you with wanting more. “Filthy Blasphemy” is a furious anti-God blast massacre.’

 

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Leon Ferrari Various (2000 – 2007)
‘The Argentine artist Leon Ferrari was perhaps best known for his seemingly blasphemous works. The Virgin Mary in a blender? Check. Saints in a frying pan? He did that too. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a man we now know as Pope Francis, demanded that a 2004 retrospective in Buenos Aires featuring Ferrari’s work be closed immediately, saying it represented a “blasphemous affront.” A judge agreed, but not before a group of Christians could destroy several works.’

 

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Martin Kippenberger Zuerst die Füße (Feet First) (1991)
‘In 2008, during an exhibition at the Museion in Bozen, Italy,[36] a sculpture by Martin Kippenberger depicting a toad being crucified called Zuerst die Füsse (“First the Feet”) was condemned by Pope Benedict as blasphemous.’

 

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Avdey Ter-Oganyan Young Atheist (1998)
‘Ter-Oganyan’s performance in a public Russian square consisted of hacking a series of mass-produced Orthodox icons with an axe. In a surprising turn of events, Ter-Oganyan was stopped while performing and punched by fellow artists, who saw his work as offensive. He subsequently emigrated from Russia under the threat of a criminal case for “igniting religious hatred.”’

 

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Dionysis Kavalieratos Various (2013)
‘On March 14th, 2013, Greek artist Dionysis Kavalieratos was tried in court on blasphemy charges brought on him by members of the ultra-conservative “Genuine Orthodox Christians” Church (the Greek Old Calendarists, that also starred in the “Corpus Christi” charade). The charges were due to the following three sketches exhibited by the artist in a private art gallery. After the artist was acquitted, the plaintiffs and their supporters were up in arms, screaming at the defendant and his lawyer loving christian wishes, such as “cancer on your children”, “you’ll be tortured by demons in hell” and “how much did the arch-rabbi pay you?”. The trial was interrupted and the judges and the defendant were besieged by the crowd and they managed to leave with a police escort.’

Happy Easter

Hidden in Napoleon’s Boudoir

Seven Dicks Jesus

 

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Chelsea Knight Fall to Earth (Blasphemy) (2015)
‘A cycle of short videos inspired by Salman Rushdie’s magical realist novel The Satanic Verses. Each chapter is staged as a live event produced for video and takes as its point of departure themes related to socially condemned speech and other forms of silencing or restraint. “What is at the core of blasphemy? How can a socially condemned or condemnable speech act be engaged in a way that gives it voice and also expresses its danger? As we have seen with the events of Charlie Hebdo and the recent Copenhagen shooting, this is a crucial moment for what blasphemy means in the world and how it is defined, received, and pushed back against.” — Chelsea Knight’

Excerpts

 

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Manuel Ocampo Various (2000 – 2016)
‘Ocampo’s provocative works, which are associated with a grunge counter-culture movement, have been decried as controversial, blasphemous, and lewd. He explains: “The strong symbolism in my paintings is presented as empty signs. I want to push the conventions of painting to the point of ridicule…to go beyond thought.” Ocampo’s style is characterized by his use of coarse brushwork and use of vivid colors, in addition to his dark humor and often macabre subject matter.’

 

________________
Cosimo Cavallaro My Sweet Lord (2003)
‘Dubbed by the Catholic League “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever”, Cosimo Cavallaro’s My Sweet Lord gained the artist a few death threats, charges of hate speech, protests, and boycotts. His sculpture of a “anatomically-correct” Jesus, with arms stretched out on an invisible cross, was made from more than 200 pounds of milk chocolate and was shown in 2007 at Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan. The fact that the statue was completely naked and that the show took place during the 2007 Holy Week caused violent complains of the Catholic League, which succeeded in shutting down the show and having the gallery’s creative director to submit his resignation.’

 

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David Mach Jesus Christ (2011)
‘In 2011, David Mach created a head sculpture of Christ with matches. The sculpture’s ashen remains were displayed in an exhibition at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, staged to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. While Mach had also included a head of the devil, which he planned to burn in an egalitarian gesture, the Scottish Christian Institute called the stunt “appalling.”’

 

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Mark Ryden Rosie’s Tea Party (2005)
‘The outrage is inspired by Rosie’s Tea Party, a 2003 painting by the self-professed “pop surrealist” artist Mark Ryden, included in a show opening Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach. Benito Loyola, CEO of local IT company Loyola Enterprises, is a member of the Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission, and he isn’t happy. Loyola has even threatened to slash the museum’s funding for promoting “anti-Christian bigotry.”

‘“Look at this—she’s got a saw in her hand cutting off a piece of ham with the words on the ham ‘Corpus Christ,’” Loyola told local news station WAVY, unpacking just what it was about the painting’s colorful iconography that so enraged him. “That is Latin for ‘body of Christ,’ and the ham is dropping down and eaten by rats.”’

 

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KWAZULU-NATAL, South Africa, November 13, 2019 – ‘Grantleigh Curro School is a small South African school that bills itself as dedicated to “uphold(ing) Christian values and encourag(ing) principled, caring and responsible behaviour at all times,” but currently finds itself mired in controversy over a student art display featuring demonic and anti-Christian imagery.

‘A video by a concerned father went viral last month of paintings, illustrations, and sculptures that included fast food mascot Ronald McDonald replacing Jesus Christ in the Last Supper and God in Michelangelo’s famous painting The Creation of Adam, a depiction of a Jesus figure grotesquely opening his own chest, recurring images of demons and skull-headed figures, and busts of horned figures composed partly of torn-up Bible pages, with more tatters strewn about the table.

‘The display “broke my heart” and “felt like we were crucifying Jesus all over again,” the father said. “My God is not a clown!”’

 

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Ronald Harrison The Black Christ (1962)
‘Inspired by the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, and challenging both the apartheid system and the ingrained notion that Christ was white, the South African painter Ronald Harrison created a very particular Crucifixion scene. He cast Albert Luthuli (president of the illegal African National Congress and 1960 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize) as Christ, and the former Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd (considered as “the architect of apartheid”) and the former Minister of Justice John Vorster as Roman soldiers. After the painting was unveiled in 1962 at St. Luke’s Church in suburban Cape Town, Harrison was arrested and tortured by security police. The painting was banned in South Africa, smuggled into the UK, and returned back to its home in 1997. It is currently held in storage, with a replica on display at the offices of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. A 2007 proposal to permanently exhibit the painting produced public outcry.’

 

________________
The Bells Angels Black Light Agony (2016)
‘Format : 62 pages, A4, photocopies NB, impression braille, sérigraphie. 30 ex.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** jay, I think if anything it’s rising in popularity of late. The world at large is pretty literal these days. Like you, perhaps, I’m just an observer. Thanks so much for the link to the chapter. I’ll go hit that up in a minute or rather quite a number of minutes. Thanks, Jay. Stay inspiring. ** Dominik, Hi!!! This blog’s technical disorder is very odd. Whoa, thank you, diligent love. I will of course hit that link and get all beady eyed. You know how almost everyone who gets cosmetic surgery looks like they’re all members of some specific alien from outer space species? I’m guessing becoming a mannequin would do the same thing? Haha, love should put that observation into a short story or something, or else I might swipe it. Love unsuccessfully trying to imagine an act of blasphemy that doesn’t just look like some dumb meme, G. ** Adem Berbic, I don’t believe in magic, but I do sort of almost believe in karma. Yeah, see, without the Mallarme thing, opening a Hegel tome sounds like making a dentist appointment. I read lots of writers who are presumably Hegel filters to some degree, and I suspect that’s plenty. Interesting point but I can’t connect it to Faulkner, although I’m not the most widely read Faulkner guy. Yeah, but is it nasty smelling goop, or is it a whiff of the sublime? Only a tiny fraction of the world’s population knows for sure. Haha, when Martin interviewed me for that ‘Gone’ book and I told him I wasn’t interested in serial killers anymore, he was completely mind boggled. He couldn’t understand how that could be humanly possible. ** _Black_Acrylic, Ah, yes, James’s book. He hasn’t been around here in ages. He would have had something and probably plenty to say about yesterday’s post. ** Charalampos, Mm, no, I don’t remember, but a google search would probably tell you. There must be people who collect them. I’m sure there are images and pages from those magazine in the ‘Gone’ collages, yes. I would have to go look at my research, but I remember the model was blond and kind of fleshy. ** julian, I’ve never really been into the occult except chaos magick when I was writing my novel ‘Guide’ which deals with it and is built to be a sigil. The writing in those books is so unsavoury, to me anyway. I did a post about Austin Osman Spare a long time ago. I should restore it maybe. The Russian twink porn boys were pretty meatless, but I think the ‘edible’ one strangely wasn’t, which I guess explains why he made guys hungry? Okay, I think, but don’t hold me to it, that his porn name was Chris. The thing with the Russian porn was it was shot in these really scuzzy rooms with hideous wallpaper and thrift store furniture that I guess was where the porn makers lived. And the boys tended to look very depressed and stoned and like they hadn’t eaten in days. And, yes, the cameras were primitive, and they only used natural light, which was inevitably drab. That kind of porn would never fly these days. I’ll go find Lydia’s show with Jamie Stewart and start there. That’s a curious duo. Thanks! ** Carsten, Glad you’re lined up with a specialist. I don’t know why they gave me steroids. I don’t know anything about them other than they build muscles for muscle guys and supposedly shrink guys’ dicks. But they made me feel better, and my muscles are just as flimsy as they ever were. Thanks for the insight on Jesse’s array. I don’t know anything or hardly about that stuff, so it’s all valuable input to me. ** Marbella Photographer, Hello there. Interesting question. I wish Jesse was around to make an educated guess. ** Gustavo, I can’t remember for sure, but I think ‘Resident Evil 4’ was my favorite? I should finish the hopefully final draft of the script before I say too much about it because it’s still filling in, but I will when it’s concrete. Thank you for asking. Me too on the occult ignorance. I like the paranormal but only because it’s kind of wacky and fun. ** HaRpEr //, Oh, really? Does it look as much like a flat frying pan in person? I find reading about Artaud more interesting than actually reading him. But don’t tell Infinity Land Press. Rechy is very old fashioned. He lived down the street from me in LA for years. He was very ‘gay boys today have no idea what being gay is really like’, etc. I could tell you endless Rechy diva, etc. stories, but I shouldn’t and I won’t. ** Steve, Hi. None of those books or people. Just chaos magick books and related things, mostly by this writer Peter Carroll who was a chaos magick top dog at least at the time. Obvious luck with solving your vision. Cool find! Everyone, Steve has found a treasure trove and passed the location along. Steve: ‘Here’s another YouTube find, Fruitier Than Thou. They’ve posted 5,000 music sessions and concerts recorded by the BBC, going beyond John Peel’s death and up to the near present.’ Thanks! ** kenley, I sometimes wish I could get all occult with the real world, but I just can’t buy it. I have this weird logical streak that has its plusses and minuses. I wrote ‘Jerk’ while I was writing the Cycle, so the research blended together. Maybe it’s that logical streak I mentioned, but I don’t have a problem imagining cannibalism as a desire. It’s like if you really want to kill someone, why not go all the way and bury them in your body? I hope that escape does the trick. What’s Montreal like? I was there only once for a film festival screening, and I couldn’t figure the city out at all. ** Hugo, Feel better, man. I have, like, zero interest in Michael Jackson, so … I don’t know. I guess I think Quincy Jones was the artist, and MJ was the enactor. The weird enactor, sure. ** rewritedept, Hey. I think maybe Grove returned ‘God Jr.’ to print because there’s a ‘God Jr.’ graphic novel in the works so they want to be ready. Thingy’s good, yeah, agreed. I’ve been very into the My New Band Believe album. It’s the band of the guy who was the bass player of black midi. It’s pretty impressive. ** Okay. Today’s post stretches out the blog’s brief spiritual stint for another day. See you tomorrow.