Marwencol lies beyond Belgium, outside art

Last night as we started watching Marwencol, the documentary about Mark Hogancamp and his doll village whose name is a portmanteau of Mark, Wendy, and Colleen, Mr Z turned to me and said, "This is what Mark Chapman did before he shot John Lennon, but his dolls turned their backs on him." (I couldn't find anything about this online, but I'll track it down.)

I scanned other reviews of Marwencol for mentions of what struck me particularly hard about this documentary.  The reviews talk about Marwencol being "affecting" and a story of "loss" and "coping" through art.  I don't disagree with that, but there was little mention (maybe I'm being generous to the filmmaker here) of what I found to be particularly shocking.  It wasn't just that Mark Hogancamp was play acting the events that led to his losing 38 years of his memories, the entire contents of a life, but how his fantasy world was taking over.  The real world, the one he had no choice but to live in, was slipping further and further away.

Mark shows what he did to the VCR that ate one of his best porn tapes.

Colleen is addressed as Mark's first love.  We see how much care and attention he pays to what he calls Colleen's doll, her alter-ego has just had her hair done.  Colleen herself points out Mark's attention to detail.  The sparkles in the doll's top coordinate with the sparkles in the doll's pants.  Her husband warns her to be careful in light of Mark's obsession of her.  A little while later, as Mark tells Colleen how their dolls are engaged and how the wedding plans have been made, she reminds him that they are just dolls.  His reaction is to have another one of Marwencol's residents, Deja Thoris, the Belgian witch of Marwencol poof Colleen's doll out of existence.

Deja Thoris, the Belgian witch of Marwencol

Later it is revealed that Mark returned from his nine day coma and consequent 40 day hospital stay to find a closet full of ladies shoes and boots.  He asks his roommate who they belong to.  "They're yours," his roommate Tim tells him.  Tim has his own doll in Marwencol, a well-deserved one since he helped Mark after his hospital stay when the hospital threw him out and there was no more access to therapy treatments to help him reacquire all that he had lost in the senseless attack.

Nothing is said about the shoes until much later, when Mark is told he admitted to his attackers that he was a cross dresser.  You start to understand Hogancamp better now.  You see he was a victim of a hate crime, and the rules of his make believe town starts to make sense.  "Everybody has to get along," Hogancamp says.

Captain Hogie, Hogancamp's alter-ego marries a Russian soldier named Anna after Anna proves her love for him by rescuing him from the hands of the S.S., the dolls that represent Mark's real-life attackers.  It is a bloody fight, and it is not the last documented during the film.  As Mark is propelled to artist status, his pictures are shown in a magazine and a gallery show is arranged in New York City, where Mark feels free to don a pair of high heels and seamed stockings in public.  Before leaving for the big city, back in Marwencol Anna and the other dolls help Captain Hogie put on a pair of stockings.  Here Hogancamp finds the acceptance he did not find in his real life. 

Anna and two other girls storm the church in Marwencol where Captain Hogie is being held by the S.S.

Before the attack Hogancamp's drunken journals are full of impressive sketches, a gift that is ripped cruelly from him when his skull is caved in.  He does not remember the taste of alcohol or the need to consume it.  The snapshots of Marwencol are beautiful.  It is obvious that Hogancamp has an artist's eye, and while he can longer "draw anything he wanted", he has taken thousands of pictures. 

I feel drawn to him when I see him snap away with his Pentax K1000 with its broken light meter.  I had one myself when I was a teenager, the light meter was also broken, but I never had Hogancamp's style or ability or patience.  I watch him use tweezers to tighten a knot for a tiny scarf.  His dexterity is amazing, but his clumsiness in the rest of his life is hard to watch.

He wants to be loved.  He wants to find his real life Anna, someone to play in Marwencol with him. Someone who will accept him as he is and he knows he is more broken than any of his well-tended dolls.

The opening shot of the documentary called to mind the work of Henry Darger, and the world inhabited by his Vivian girls, but whereas Darger's work is inhabited by young naked girls collaged from newspapers he gathered from the trash and magazines (which have led to some claiming Darger might have been a pedophile), Hogancamp's world is inhabited by women.  He loves women.  He loves their shoes and makes them the heroines of his fantasy world, but he accepts that he will probably never find his Anna.

The editor of the magazine that first published Mark's work talks about setting up a disability trust for him, but beyond the mention that Mark was cut off from public assistance for his therapy, not a word is said about finding more help for him.  Hogancamp has already been stolen in bits and pieces, his fantasy world invaded by forces just as deadly as the S.S. by those who will not respect the rules of Marwencol.  At the gallery showing there are negative comments and the typical art world bullshit - best depicted by two New Yorkers who stand behind Hogancamp and snigger as he speaks on camera about how he wishes he'd worn heels to his opening because he feels safer in them.

When the gallery show is over Mark returns to Marwencol.  He is wearing wide legged capri pant jeans with stockings, his feet shoved into black mules studded with rivets.  Captain Hogie is posed until Anna is in his arms, and they kiss.

Mr Z calls Hogancamp's story a tragedy and despite what the reviews say, I agree if only because despite what Mark has found for himself, he knows too well what he's lost.

If you'd like to see more of Marwencol, or to donate or purchase Hogancamp's work, you can do so through the official website or Tumblr.

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The Boiler Maker by Akbar del Piombo/Norman Rubington

I don't remember where I bought this book, which is odd because though I never write it down, I always tend to remember. Not so in the case of this odd little book that peered out from the shelf at me this morning, Akbar del Piombo's "The Boiler Maker".

My father kept a log of all the books he owned. Where he bought them, how much he paid, if a book was given as a gift, books he borrowed or lent, and a list of books he was still searching for throughout his whole life that is in itself a rather impressive document considering my father's library consisted of over 17,000 books when he passed away.

It had always been my plan to go through my own collection and add to it to my father's logs to the best of my memory. As I scan my bookshelves (which hold about 2,000 books) I rarely draw a blank when looking at the spines and if I do, it's mostly because it's a book that Monsieur Redacteur bought before we met.

So "The Boiler Maker" was taunting me. I picked it up and looked at the cover to refresh my memory. Nothing. I didn't even realise that the book was published jointly in America through The Citadel Press and by The Olympia Press in France. There is no price on the upper right hand corner of the first blank page that so many of my books have either.

I remember why I bought it. The cover intrigued me and it wasn't expensive.

And the inside was even more intriguing.

(I searched the Internets in vain for images from Rubington's "The Boiler Maker" and because of the fragility of the spine on my copy, I couldn't scan it so here's a few images taken with a camera.)

Published in 1961, "The Boiler Maker" was written by Akbar del Piombo and the collages were made by Norman Rubington - who were the same person.

I found an obituary from The Times for Norman Rubington (which was his real name). Let me just say that despite the expense, the time, and the space it takes up in my life that it is in moments like this where my bibliophilia brings me the most delight. I knew nothing about the history behind this book when I bought it.  It sat on my shelf for nearly four years and today it's literally made my day.

Norman Rubington arrived to Paris in the 1950s to paint and became part of the expatriate scene that included William Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Samuel Beckett, and Richard Sever (editor of The Paris Review). Together the group worked with Maurice Giordias to edit, advise, and write for The Olympia Press.

Under the nom de plume of Akbar del Piombo, Norman Rubington wrote a number of "pornographic" books for The Olympia Press. As himself he made collages to accompany his writing that were inspired by Max Ernst's work in "Une semaine de bonte", the more famous sequel to "La femme de 100 Têtes".

her fiery smile will fall down from the hillsides
as black frost and white rust

accompanied by immaculate parasites, Santa Claus allows
himself to be controlled from afar by means of lateral appendages

Akbar and Norman's work was very popular with GIs (soldiers) visiting Paris during the 50's and 60's when his works were published. Using scenes in Arab harems and exaggerated, often extremely funny, orgy scenes, his work was characterised by much tongue-in-cheek humour and definite literary quality far beyond the demands of the publisher. There was also a strong streak of social and political satire in his work. Subjects he used included the drug scene, war, the art world, and society in general.

Picasso had already introduced the art world to the medium of collage, but it wasn't until the Surrealists adapted it for their vision(s) that it became something more. Gertrude Stein was the first to collage words in 1914 with "Tender Buttons", which paved the way for works such as Henry Miller's "Black Spring" and the works of William Burroughs like Naked Lunch and his famous Cut-Up Trilogy (you can read a post on The Third Mind here).

It's after writing this post (while listening to Lord Buckley) and looking at this slim little volume I'd ignored since its initial purchase that it dawns on me. Yesterday while I had friends over I pulled out something I had been working on intently when I decided to use the method of collage to help me with my writing. I bought a sketch book and started collecting stuff. I took pictures, printed things from the Internet, and ended up with what an artist friend of mine called "Ama's Art Brut".

The truth is collage has always inspired me. I made collages as a teenager quite a bit, using magazines and random words to express myself. My favourite artist is Henry Darger. I'd love to own his book about the Vivian Girls, but it's never been published in full.

I can't draw, but by borrowing images I can still make art - or at least that's the way I feel today because Rubington could draw (he was a very successful painter and even won the Prix de Rome) and yet obviously loved the art of collage as much as I do.

As far as inspiration goes, this little book has paid for itself. Who cares if I can't remember how it came to be a part of my life? (Okay, a little part of me still cares.)

Oh and as a massive fan of Terry Gilliam (and the Monty Pythons in general), I also want to mention that without Picasso, Ernst, and especially Rubington we wouldn't have this - also known as the best Christmas card ever.

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The Artful Darger

I fell in love with the art of Henry Darger at first sight. It was what the French call a coupe de foudre, a lightning bolt. I had to see more. The more I saw and the more I scoured for information on Darger, a janitor who upon his death left behind a cave of wonders; the more I yearned like I have never yearned before for a book perhaps I will never have, the complete manuscript of his "In the Realms of the Unreal".

It is one of the longest books ever written at 15,145 single spaced pages. Its full title, often shortened to In the Realms of the Unreal is: The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. Given the title and the page count it's no surprise that the story is composed of 9,000,000 words in 15 immense volumes.

In my search I got the impression that people are either more fascinated by his art or his life. Darger was orphaned, considered feeble minded, and scraped together a living working as a janitor in a Catholic hospital in Chicago, Illinois. There is a documentary about Henry and his life told by his former landlord and neighbours who knew him while he lived in his room at 851 Webster Street and wandered around collecting garbage pretty much all alone in the world. When he died his landlords the Lerners discovered what Henry was doing with his time; why they heard him often talking to himself; and what all those newspapers and magazines were being made into - perhaps one of the greatest examples of outsider art the world has ever known.

But what about the manuscript? What about the story Henry spent his entire life telling? Not only the story of the Vivian Girls but his own autobiography. Henry is one of the most collectible outsider artists. His former landlords have made money off his art (which is its own story) and yet Henry's story remains untold.

What can you find on Henry Darger's amazing manuscript? The aforementioned documentary by Jessica Yu, "In the Realms of the Unreal" is a good source of information. I've captured some stills including the impressive records and accounting ledgers Henry kept of everything in his world from goods to property and a sort of census of characters.

I want this to be published so badly I even tried to write letters to the Henry Darger Foundation and Kiyoko Lerner, Henry's former landlord who holds the "rights" to whether or not the manuscript might ever be printed whether in part or in full.

In the meantime sadly the only book I can find that has more text from The Story of the Vivian Girls is

a book written by John M. MacGregor that goes for $450 - $700 used.

Please universe, publish an affordable version of Henry's work. It seems ridiculous to not tell his story in a way that everyone can afford.

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