Month: April 2022

Shocking and Scandalous!

THIS POST WAS UPDATED 4.30.22

Black Scat author Caroline Crépiat poses with her edition of LE CHAT NOIR EXPOSED at the recent exposition of Incohérents art at the l’Olympia in Paris. A true funhouse of exhibits and quite a scandal still, just as the early exposition in 1893 shocked the city. The Incoherents were irrational, satirical, iconoclastic and absurdist, but were they artists asked the public? “Mais oui,” exclaimed Jules Lévy, the founder of the Incoherent Art movement, “but these artists don’t know how to draw.” (haha)

Imagine the gasps of attendees when they spied Alphonse Allais‘s green cab curtain, titled Des souteneurs, encore dans la force de l’âge et le ventre dans l’herbe, boivent de l’absinthe (Pimps still in the prime of life and lying face down in the grass drink absinthe)—one of the earliest monochromes in the history of art!—shocking indeed.

Most of the original Incoherent’s artworks & ephemera did not survive, and could only be seen in 19th century illustrations. But then, in 2021, came a remarkable discovery in France — a large trunk with 17 examples of art by Incoherents, including Allais’s monochrome.

But wait…were these artworks real, or fakes and forgeries? And why was the show limited to only 4 hours of viewing?? (What next? A drive-thru exhibition?)

Experts, such as our friend, artist and critic, Corinne Taunay, have been investigating and discovered that several items (including Allais’s curtain!) aren’t authentic. Mon dieu! — another scandal rocks the Parisienne artworld! This brazen scam appears designed to reap enormous profit (10 million euros, anyone?) off the memory of dead avant-garde rebels.

Meanwhile, here in America where everything is branded “fake” today, we remain respectfully silent on the controversy. However, what we can guarantee is the authenticity of Ms. Crépiat’s LE CHAT NOIR EXPOSED. Indeed, her book is the real deal — translated from the French by the great Doug Skinner — an extraordinary work of scholarship that ‘exposes’ the liveliest fin-de-siècle bohemian cabaret and journal in Paris.

CLICK HERE and see for yourself.

NEW FICTION COLLECTION

SACRIFICE is perhaps Harold Jaffe’s most personal book, while at the same time assaulting the assaulters of an earth in its final throes. As always, the assaults are brilliantly multi-faceted: “unsituated” dialogues, razor-sharp satire, faux-reportage, precisely cadenced rhetoric, and a deep spirit-feeling for the disappeared and dispossessed—human, animal, and plant.

Each of Jaffe’s volumes has been groundbreaking. He has written some of the most innovative fiction of our time. —Toby Olson

Harold Jaffe’s latest work, Sacrifice, is an omnidirectional cry of alarm and call to action concerning the multifarious and often extinction-level problems facing our world. In a series of insightful and often ironic short texts, ranging from docufiction tosocio-philosophical commentary and self-examination, beginning with references to Greek philosophers and meandering through the most critical issues of our day, Jaffe’s adept prose is a heart-filled and intellectualized reaction to terrestrial issues, a combination of rage, revulsion, and an implied plea for amelioration—in the fullest form of self-sacrifice, if necessary. —Sebastian Bennett

SACRIFICE
Harold Jaffe
A BlackScat Paperback Original
140 pp., 7.13 x 7.25 inches; $12.95
ISBN 979-8-9859996-0-0

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR HAROLD JAFFE:

From the docufictional shards of GOOSESTEP emerges a savage prophetic voice as grief-maddened as Isis picking through the bones on illusion’s killing floor to reassemble a dream that cannot be reanimated.—Patricia Eakins

As TERROR-DOT-GOV vividly demonstrates: We are spiritually imperiled by illusions masked as “news.” Omissions, slants, pallid editorials all testifying to servitude to a slavish, enslaving “text.” Harold Jaffe knows this by heart. Everywhere in Terror-dot-Gov, is exemplary skill, faultless tonality, and courage. Don’t forget courage. —Daniel Berrigan, SJ


“Jaffe’s convincing portraits of the dispossessed are moving, insightful glimpses of the human spirit under stress.” —New York Times Book Review


As always, Jaffe’s writing is moving, comical, marvelously deft.”
—Washington Post

Also Available from Black Scat:

This collection of Harold Jaffe’s short, one-act plays is exceptionally diverse. The nine innovative dramas feature Billie Holiday & Lester Young; Antonin Artaud & Georges Bataille; Marilyn Monroe & Marlon Brando; Samuel Beckett; condemned prisoners in Texas making their final statement before execution; Israelis & Palestinians in life-or-death dialogue; Charles Manson unleashed; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin & Jim Morrison burning it at both ends; & the potently satirical “Splish Splash,” exploring gender discord.