Ferlov Mancoba
Audio file 131-2
Wonga speaks of Sonja Ferlov Mancoba's friends, Percy [no further identification]; [tape stopped and restarted] and Marie-Berthe Aurenche, which leads him to speak of Max Ernst and Catholicism
Wonga speaks of Sonja rejecting some aspects of Surrealists and Surrealism (mentions Artaud); Ernest asks Wonga to clarify what is wrong with pleasure, Wonga continues with his thoughts on Artaud; Wonga speaks of Sonja disliking Max Ernst's treatment of Aurenche but that she appreciated his art
Ernest interjects about the Surrealists considering art as a form of pleasure; Wonga thinks Ernest is confusing the Surrealist with certain Danish artists who look to the sexual drive; Wonga speaks of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan buying Corbet's "L'origine du monde" (1866) for titillation
Wonga returns to Aurenche and her subsequent romance with Chaïm Soutine; [tape stopped and restarted] Wonga speaks of Francis Gruber (mentions Picasso's Blue Period)
[tape stopped and restarted] Ernest states he does not agree with art that is only about sex; Wonga says Sonja Ferlov also did not agree (speaks of Freud's sex drive, mentions Giacometti and Artaud)
Wonga gives an example of Surrealist art that Sonja did not like, a porcelain toilet, and works she did like: the drawings and collages of Max Ernst, works by Louis Buñuel and René Magritte
the "porcelain toilet" is likely to be a reference to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (197) in which Duchamp places a readymade urinal on its side and signs it "R. Mutt"
[tape stopped and restarted multiple times] Wonga speaks of Sonja's time during the war: making "Skulptur" (1940-46), support from Giacometti, what she had to eat
Wonga and Ernest discuss Sonja being traumatised when her friend Genia Katz Rajhmann (who was also a friend of Asger Jorn's) was rounded up along with other Jews by the Vichy government to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, with mothers and children separated
from 16 to 17 July 1942, the French Vichy government brought Jews in Paris to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a cycling track, to expressly deport them to extermination camps, an event called Vél d'Hiv
Facts
PDFAbout the recordings: Ernest Mancoba's son, Marc also known as Wonga, recorded interviews with his father. The interviews seemed to serve different purposes and are not in chronological order.
Ca.1990-2002 (131-2)
Antonin Artaud
Marie-Berthe Aurenche
Louis Buñuel
Gustave Courbet
Marcel Duchamp
Max Ernst
Alberto Giacometti
Francis Gruber
Asger Jorn
Jacques Lacan
René Magritte
Genia Rajhmann
Chaïm Soutine
- Vélodrome d'Hiver, Paris