CARTEBTANCHE AlanJones

Enrico Donati A Painterand his Surrealist Entitlements

ontemporary: the word has always had an optimistic ring. Enrico Do- nati's studio overlooksthe sreat ex- panseof Central Park's north light, and it is here that the Milan-born painter hasworked for many of the years since his arrival in America in 1934. After his one-man show SurrealistPaintings and Objectsfrom the For- ties at Zabriskie, Donati took time out from a new canvasto speak about some of his Enrlco Donatf, Quate Peflodes de l'Evotutton d'une Cellule Ardflclelle, L947, contemporariesin New York. Off on Ganyas,24' x 20'. Courtesy Zabrlskle Gallery. "\7hen I was in I lived in Mont- martre,so I didn't know anyof the Sumealists. That happenedin New York. The critic Lio- nello Venturi cameto seemy first show here, at the New Schoolfor SocialResearch. It was monas-a body that flickersand disappears Calder, Max Ernst. One day I seeBreton get 1942.'Listen.You're a Surrealist,'hetold me. like a flamein the darknessof a room-sur- very agitated. Our tabie was right at the 'You should meet Breton.' " prise! leavingnothing ofherselfon the canvas window. Breton spots a man dressedup all Andr6 Breton and his fellow Surrealist but a song." (Yearslater Breton wrote from in navy blue, white shirt, and he gets up and exiles had chosenNew York as their city of Paris:"I hope you neverlose your color.") goes over to this man as he comes in, and refuge. He came to see Donati's show and Breton ended his prefaceby proclaim- Breton standsin front of him and bowsJapa- was drawn to the underlyingtheme of al- ing,J'airee la peintured'Enrico Donati cornme nese style. It was . Breton chemy. "Breton was particularly impressed j'aime la nuit de rnai-I love the of had him sit next to me and said,'You should by the density and ambiguity of Donati's im- Enrico Donati asI love a night in May. "\Why talk to Donati and go seehis work.' " agery," writes Theodore \7olff, "by its wide he didn't make it a night in April, I'11never "Cutting through formalities, Du- rangeof possiblemeanings. The youngartist's know. Right away some of the boys started champ turned to me and said, 'Call me Mar- ability to provoke a viewer's imagination in calling me by this new nickname.\Therever cel.' From then on we v/ere friends until he severaldirections at once fascinatedhim." I went I'd hear, 'Hey, Night in May! ' I was died. He becamereally my godfather; I con- Donati had passedhis test. somad. But I found a way to get even.Caresse sideredmyself his bastardson. He liked me; "I was just a kid, trying to find a way Crosbywas a goodfriend of all the Surrealists. 'we got along, and got together two or three to expressmyself more than anything else, Shehad inherited somemoney, I don't know, times a week. but Breton acceptedme into the Surrealist from her husbandor something,and she de- "My children consideredhim a part of movement. Suddenly I was surrounded by voted her life to artists.Caresse asked me to my family. When he came to dinner at my giants-Max Ernst,Tanguy, all the big guys. havea show at the G PlaceGallery, in Wash- housethe first thing he would do was to say Matta and I were the youngestof this group ington. I agreedon two conditions: it had to to my eldest daughter, who is a sculptor, of the most impossiblecharacters. But we got be in May, and it had to open at night. A 'Marina, bring me the Petit Larousse.'Therc along very well. From then on, I startedhav- critic from the Neu York Timescame down was alwayssome word, or something,to look ing shows." and did a big article:'Donati hashis Night,' up and check.My daughterfinally got fed up Bretonwrote a prefacefor one of them, They stopped calling me Night in May. and would just place the dictionary next to in which he compared the lushnessof Do- "\7e were living together every day. his plate aheadof time, 'So I don't have to nati's color with the plush interior of a violin We had lunch at Larr6, a restauranton \West get up everytime, becauseI know he's going case.It was Sumealistwriting at its most ex- 56th Streetacross from the rwo roomsu/here to ask for it.' Marcelgot a big laugh out of tavaganti "In this violin case,the body of a Breton lived. It was an open table for all of that. womanripens and glowsin the reddish-blond us to come and go. Tanguy camedown from "rWhat can I say-Marcel became tints of the purest cedar shell of all the Cre- Woodbury, Seligmann came down, Sandy everythingfor me, my inspiration of life. My

ARTS MAGAZINE 17 CARTE betweenpainter BTANCHE and poet embodiesall of the style. Marcel was the most perfectionist guy Suffealist AlanJones spirit of spontaneouscombustion you ever met in your life. He had an acumen, of the psyche occumingin the highly charged a perception of things, that was legendary. electical field berween multiple .r.uiiu. Hewasnot human,it wassomething beyond: forces. there is where he was a Surrealist." wodd was completelydifferent from his, my Duchamp calledupon Donati's talents In L954, the permanent exhibition of thinking was differenr,bur we had a certain in many ways. In 1,945,the two undertook the Louise and Walter ArensbereCollection amount of alchemythat brought us together. the coverillustration and the installationof a wasunveiled at the PhiladelphiaMuseum of And he would givetitles to someof my ihows, window display .,We at Brentano'sbookstore for Art, with 43 works by Duchamp. all such as the Moonscapes,for instance.He the second edition of Breton's book Le Sur- took rhe train from Penn Station around came and hung at least ten of my shows. rdalismeet laPeinture,whichcontainsa chap- five-thity or six o'clock. Everyone was in He wouldn't comero the opening,iut he'd ter dedicated to Donati's work. When tle black tie-Marcel included. There was a come hang the , like at Alexandre installation was taken down after one dav. at whole bunch of us. He wasn't mamied to Iolasor BettyParsons." the insrructions of Mr. Brentanohimself,'bu- Teeneyat that time. A hurricane calledEdna "The caseof Marcel Duchamp," Bre- champand Donati immediatelyset it up again was in the headlines,and a tree fell on the ton predicredin 1922,"offers us a precious in the window of the Gotham Book Mart. ralkoad racks. \X/e got inro philadelphia at line of demarcationberween the two spirirs "I helped Marcel organizean exhibi- rwo o'clockin the morning.Forget thi open- that will tend to opposeone anothermore tion calledle Surrdalismeen 1947, ,modern at Maesht ing: it was started,finished, and buried. and more in the very heart of the in Paris.He didn't evenbother to rtayfor ih. "\79 all slepton armchairsin the lobby spirit' . . ." Duchamp'sinterplay udth Surre- opening but ^ went back to New York in- of some hotel. The next morning, still in alismwas a subtle gameof hide and seek. stead."Donati's Euil Eyeoccupied a placein black tie, everyonehad breakfast,and then the "Superstition Room," andhis bronzeob- we marchedto the museum.It was Ereatfun. onati got on well with both the drill ject cailedPour un Autel wasexhibited. Marcelenjoyed every minute of it. He didn't sergeant of and its con- Another Duchamp-Donaticollabora- like openings,so he couldn'thave been hap- scientious objector. "I have a huge corre- tion was the cataloguecover for Surrealism pier wirh the way rhingsturned out. spondenceof lertersro me from Briton, but '47 featuting , afoam-rubberbreast. "I helped "That's why he did this, did that, trIarcel?-he wouidn't evenanswer a letter. Marcel do rhe famous bosom, Priire de playedchess. had srudenrshe tauehtFrench I do have a few from him, but thev were Toucher.There were 999 bosomson the floor to, in order to make a living . . . H. *u, u a.hvayswrirten on the backof an old envelooe of my studio. ril7e went to work and started great guy, and a greatloss to me when he of a lerteraddressed to him bv so-eone else. gluingeach one ofthem by hand.By the end died, and maybefor some other people too. or a scrapof paper,rhe back of a relegram. we v/ere fed up, job but we got the done. I Maybe for Matta . . . yeah,Matta loved him. He couldn'tcare less. remarked that I never thought I would get I inherited his pipe: From Marcel to Enrico. "He couldn't care less . . . Marcel tired of handling so manybreasts, and Mariel You've never didn't seena pipe like that." talk about painting. He talked about said'Maybe that's the whole idea.'" chess.\7e playedonce or twice,and he,d sav, That sameyear, Donati worked with his hat city can rival in the '\.ou're not playing chessyou're pushing mentor on the Nude Descendingthe Staircase YY accumulation of modern mysteries? sood.' Breton was just the opposite. Hi sequencein Hans Richter's DreamsMonel Thesemysteries themselves constitu;e one of muld go on forever in front of a painting. Ca1 Buy, and the following year played the the prime ingredientsof Sumealism.On the "Breton titled at ieast ten vearsof mv role of a knight in Richter's 8 x 8. next bright timeless winter afternoon that u-ork-every painting. Breton did that for "One dayMarcel calledme up and said comesalong, just sit in front of a dry martini Ianguy and severalother friends. It was a that there wasa painringof his at the collec- at someMidtown bar andwatch thetruckers different point of view." tor's, \Talter Pach, and that Pachhad discov- unloading their arcane cargo, and bicycle \X/ith Donati's first show at rhe passe- eredanother painting pach on the backofit. messengerson obscureenands. It,s ten years doit Gallery in 1942,Bretonhad begun com- had severalDuchamps. 'It's all cumbling,' to Kubrick's futuristic 2001, but even rhen posingtitles to correspondwith hisprotege's Marcel said.'Can you comedown and restoie we will still be mounring skyscrapersin the paintings.In a sense,each of thesetitles can it ?' samewire cagesof art-decoelevators that first besaid to qualifu as the shorrest(and uncol- "I thoughthe wasout of his mind: me took modernismup to the penthouses bcted) Surrealistpoems of New by Andr6 Breton: restorea Duchamp?I wasn'tgoing to touch York. Oeil de Nuit, Le Philtre: Ainsi Disait it. But we \Washington went down to Square, At a time when youthful painters like Giouannidi Paolo (a title Donati repeared and there was the canvas.My hands were David Salle and Eric Fischl were havine f0 vearslarer in 1984. La Rosed'Oiseaux, trembling. Marcel was standingright behind showsbilled as "mid-careerretrosDecrives.i lois d'Actinie, Mddisance du Vide, Rouet me, looking over my shoulder. 'Bring down EnricoDonati pulled down from aiieh shelf louille, LesJardins de lleptune, Racine, that color,put a little Jean touch ofthis here,and alarge old ledger book and op.n.Jit to u ThampsElectriques Organisds par l,HeureAr- do this, here . . .' He didn't want to touch it pageoftelephone messages, notes, and shop- ificiellei LongProlongementsde CharpeTer- himself, but he v/anted to be there. To or- ping lists.On the pageopposite, hidden theie estre,Loupe Marine et Loupe Terrestieoour chesffate it, to have it done the wav he lor over 40 years,was a crisp fine-linedpencil tisi on de CeII u I e Art ificte l/e' i Pro lo n ge m e n t s, wanted.He didn't want ro rouchit anvmore. drawing from the unmistakable ie n'est que le Mode d'Association ph6i hand of dis He didn't feellike painting. He wasa ctncept Marcel Duchamp. rrines Physiques n Leur Marmoniequi Consti- man,he wasnor reallya painter.I don't think rc la Vie. and Gore et Mandra, a play on he even liked painting per se. He liked the Alan lones is co-authorof The Art Dealers lonati's long interest in the mandragora idea of it more than the act. He was not (ClarksonPotter). His column on the terrain Llth. interested anymore. He participated in all held in colnmonby the literary and uisual Lke a cadaureexquis, this interaction arts theseevents, gracefully and withiremendous appearsregularly in Arts.

I APRIL 1991 I