Cadavre Exquis
A project to coincide with New Forum Magazine Issue #3 and Festival in June 2021
Have you ever played Exquisite Corpse?
Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse) is a collaborative approach first used by surrealist artists to create bizarre and intuitive drawings. Popular since the mid-1920s, it usually involves three participants, each who add to a drawing, collage or sentences without seeing what their collaborators have already done.
It can also be done collaboratively.
New Forum Magazine and Loft 112 is initiating an Alberta-wide game of Exquisite Corpse to safely facilitate artistic collaboration during the pandemic and to provide artists & writers with an opportunity to display and sell their work in our Calgary space.
How to Participate
- Sign up as a group of three artists or writers ready to create your own Cadavre Exquis together.
- Sign up as an individual, and we will team you up with two other artists or writers.
The Process
First person will receive full package (all three blank ‘canvasses’) and will complete the top piece (horizontal orientation) and pass off completed canvass + 2 blank canvasses to the next person who will, inspired (or not) by the completed top piece complete, in their own style, the middle piece (horizontal orientation) and pass off completed canvas to final person who will, inspired (or not) by the top and middle pieces, in their own style, complete the final piece.
The Timeline
Before March 21, email your interest to loftonetwelve@gmail.com stating you understand the project, the timeline and the conditions and whether you are participating as a group of three (with team member names and email/mailing addresses) or an individual (and state if you are a writer or an artist and submit a sample of your work) This sample will help us place you in a team that best suits your artistic practice.
All interested parties are welcome to participate. This is not a juried project.
Dates
- March 22, 2021: Participants will be notified with further details.
- March 28, 2021: Top piece (the starter) receives full package, completes top part and sends off all completed section plus remaining package for the next participant to begin.
- April 18, 2021 – May 9, 2021: Middle piece receives, completes, and sends off.
- May 9 – 30, 2021: Bottom final to complete and send completed package of Cadavre Exquis to Loft 112.
- May 30, 2021: All completed pieces must be in the mail or delivered to Loft 112. Details forthcoming for address and/drop off.
Who Should Apply
- Any writer or artist within Alberta at any stage of their career.
- Artists from all and every community who want to engage in an artistic/literary collaborative project. We encourage Black and Indigenous creators; creators of colour; women; queer, trans, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary artists/writers; and folks with visible or invisible disabilities. Writing in languages other than English also welcome.
- Those who can appreciate irrational imagery (visually, poetically). This is not a controlled art project. Let each artist and writer create at will!
- Those that can work within the timeline given. This is a collaboration and will only work if each person creates and passes off to the next person and ultimately to us in the time given.
- Those who are able to deliver by mail to other participants and/or Loft 112 in Calgary or in person within Calgary.
Details
Groups can ahead of time determine:
- A theme (head, body, legs? nature? abstract?)
- Materials to be used (collage, paint, charcoal?)
- If they will stay close to the heart of Cadavre Exquis and only see the bottom 2cm of the previous work or not to talk at all about and see what happens! This will prevent the drawing from evolving in a logical, sensible way. The end result is an image that resembles something more akin to a dream than to reality.
What New Forum Magazine will supply:
- Postage and envelopes (if required) art paper. The paper needs to be worked on horizontally, not vertically.
- A show in June 2021 at Loft 112. Exact dates for openings etc. will be given. We still remain uncertain in COVID times. If postponed due to COVID-19 regulations, an alternative will be given.
- Each collaborative Cadavre will be priced for sale for $300. If sold, each artist will receive $100.
If not sold art will be returned to the artist unless otherwise specified.
