While doing some research I came across an interview with artist Marina Abramovic. Reading this segment made me think on the peculiar magic wand on Jean Noblet’s Bateleur. (Yes, I know, It may very well just be a broken mold but, who knows. Sometimes a cigar is just a penis ). Perhaps some of you will find it suggestive:
MA: In socialist Yugoslavia everything was about sex, drinking and politics, and I wanted to explore where this came from. I did a lot of research and came across ancient pagan rituals where sexual organs are used for various purposes. For example, in the old days a mother would protect her child from the Evil Eye by rubbing the child’s face with vaginal fluid. Or if a woman was having a difficult birth, her husband would take his penis out and make a cross on her breast; in the field, if a horse became weak, the man would touch it with his penis too; if there was a battle, the Balkan men would take the sexiest woman from the village, undress her and force her to perform obscene gestures to distract the enemy; alternatively, the soldiers would masturbate in the earth. There are hundreds of examples, all described in a very ancient Serbian language. One I thought was fantastic was that, if there was too much rain, the women from the village would run into the fields and lift their skirts and flash their pussies to the gods to scare them. So I went to Yugoslavia and talked to perfectly ordinary women from the village, between the ages of 18 and 75, into doing it. At first they were very shy and wouldn’t do it, and I thought I wouldn’t get anywhere. But after a while they ran into the mud and started showing their pussies like there was no tomorrow.
For another scene I asked men to be dressed in national costumes, and to unzip their trousers and reveal their erections; I asked them to stand very proud and look at the camera and not move. We shot 15 hours of that material. I don’t think its pornographic – anyone who sees this material bursts out laughing, but then looks at it for a long time, in silence. But at the same time there is something I can’t explain: the power of our genitals, and how we can use them for healing or against the forces of nature. But obviously even for this kind of film I can’t rub my vaginal liquid on the face of a three-year-old kid – I’d be put in prison. So I had a good solution – I made a cartoon out of this.
Best,
EE
Noblet’s batelleur’s Wand
1What’s honeymoon salad? Lettuce alone
Don’t look now, mayonnaise is dressing!
Don’t look now, mayonnaise is dressing!