I Blame Jindřich Štyrský

This morning, for no good reason at all, I awoke at ten. Waking up at ten is acceptable if I have been up till at least three, but not otherwise. Of course, getting up at ten can be a very acceptable option if I have woken up earlier and chosen to stay in bed. It is the lack of choice in the matter that I find truly appalling.
The only explanation I can find for my having slept such a dreadfully long time is that I was, admittedly, having a very long dream about Jindřich Štyrský. Toyen had, as one might expect, a role in the dream as well, but the main character was Štyrský. Though the majority of it has gone out of my head, I can remember photographing various works, some of which he rearranged on the wall from one point in the dream to another, and working on some sort of semi-animated presentation that I kept testing on a large projection screen.


Therefore, I say to Štyrský that he had better direct me some new resources so that I have a little more to go on than what is currently in print (the person who did the typography for the volume of his writings apparently wanted to ensure that its readers would go blind).
I hope Štyrský realizes that I am a devoted admirer of his collages and have visited his grave. Which leads me to a somewhat unrelated question: given the early 20th-century fashion for cremation, why are so many cremated Czechs (Štyrský included) buried in graves big enough to fit a whole coffin? His grave is in a cemetery devoted to cremated remains, and only a small percentage of these are kept in urns in wall niches. Perhaps Toyen could answer this question, since she was the main person dealing with the funeral and the tombstone (the design of which is based on one of Štyrský's images).

2 Comments:
I hope Dusan Marek is still considered part of the Czech surrealist canon, though he worked in Adelaide and died in Tasmania.
- barista, via the estimable peacay.
I can't claim any expertise on Marek, but it appears from a cursory look at the Web that he's seen more as an Australian of Czech origin since the majority of his working life was spent in Australia.
The present-day Czechoslovak group may however claim him, I just don't know whether they do. Something to find out...
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