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  • IMAGE CREDITS
    banner: detail from 'Mechanischer Kopf' (Der Geist unserer Zeit), 1918 [Collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris]

391

  • cover 391"It's better than nothing, because really, here, there's nothing ...", wrote Francis Picabia to Alfred Stieglitz from Barcelona on 22 January 1917, to announce the publication of his "magazine", 391, the "double" that of the New York photographer, 291 [Cited in M. Sanouillet, 1966, p. 46].
  • Even if Picabia appeared to be duplicating 291 in the title and material presentation of his magazine, 391 is the instrument which allowed him to diffuse his art and his ideas: from the launch of the magazine in 1917 until 1924, each issue contained the artist's poems, notes, and drawings, and the covers almost always reproduced one of his works. The periods in which Picabia experienced difficulty account for the magazine's irregular rhythm of publication: a turning point in his art, boredom, solitude, and illness... "Better than nothing": to do everything to avoid doing nothing, to work, to create to live. For Picabia, as for the Dada movement, which he joined after the creation of 391, these years of war were about battling nothingness, the vacuum that is civilization, with provocation.
  • Between January and March of 1917, four issues appeared in Barcelona, then three others in New York between March and July of the same year. Behind a 'mechanomorphic' drawing by Picabia, he published texts and illustrations from the circle of artists located in Barcelona, then from innovative artists from New York, whom he tried to federate around his journal, but without success; numbers six and seven contained almost exclusively his own texts and drawings.
  • Picabia returned Europe and in February of 1918, he was in Lausanne and entered into contact with Tristan Tzara. The two men understood and appreciated each other. Picabia moved to Zurich in February 1919 and stayed there for three months. A great effervescence resulted from these exchanges. Picabia's ideas joined those of Dada; they developed mutually and complemented each other. Tzara and Picabia decided to collaborate on the next issues of their respective reviews - Dada Numbers 4-5 and 391 Number 8, in February 1919. The latter is in a larger format than previous issues. A new series began, inaugurated by Picabia's Construction moléculaire, which appeared on the first page instead of the usual 'mecanomorphic' drawing. Construction is the allocation or the recapitulation on a grid (a chessboard?) of people, places, and journals close to Picabia: the New York artists and their reviews make up the majority, along with Tzara and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes; Apollinaire being the only artist from a former generation. On a subsequent page appeared two texts, by Tzara and Picabia, printed side-by-side and head-to-foot, the result and symbol of their common work.
  • Issue 9, published in Paris in November 1919, was concerned essentially with a polemic by Ribemont-Dessaignes against the Salon d'automne. The change persisted. Beginning with issue Number 10 (December 1919), the format grew even larger. The magazine gained clarity and deftness, the words harder hitting, the illustrations more striking. The first page, cover and title page, were no longer constrained by the format of title/drawing. The text progressively took over the cover; it became just as dense as the others.
  • Typographical design and composition developed. Walter Serner and André Breton contributed to issue 11, published in February 1920. Heading issue 12 (March 1920), L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp was supported by a 'Dada manifesto' by Picabia. The contents included the forever-faithful Ribemont-Dessaignes, as well as Tzara, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, Céline Arnauld, and Paul Dermée. This issue also reproduced Picabia's La Sainte Vierge.
  • Number 13 (July 1920) is lighter, in every sense of the term, whereas number 14 (November 1920), the final Dada issue, was an explosion. The layout was the most developed; no page bore any resemblance to another. It featured a composition by Tzara, Une nuit déchec gras, a poem composed entirely of 'advertisements' for page 62 Dada publications. In this poem, the typographic procedures commonly used in advertising at the time were pushed to the extreme and metamorphosed. The sobriety of the opposite page, on which appears Picabia's poem Notre-Dame-de-la-peinture, opposes Une nuit and reinforces its impact. In 1921, the Pilhaou-Thibaou appears, subtitled, 'an illustrated supplement to 391' (number 15), used entirely for controversial aims, while Picabia separated himself from Dada. In the last four issues published in 1924, Picabia flouted surrealism by 'inventing' Superrealism or Instantaneism.
  • What still surprises and holds our interest today in 391 - evidence of the distress and the revolt of a man, but also of an era - is a certain allure that continues despite or with the innovations, the provocations, the refusals that it embodies. That is, the sign of a certain liberty.
  • TEXT CREDITS
    Rémi Froger, '391', translated from the French text, published in the catalogue Dada (Editions du Centre Pompidou : Paris 2005) 64-65. The translation was part of the Press Kit, published by MNAM Centre Pompidou 2005, p. 61-62 [Press Kit. MNAM Centre Pompidou; courtesy Centre Pompidou].
  • COVER
    No. 8 (February 1919); collection New York Public Library.
  • DESCRIPTION
    391
    N° 1 (January 1917) - N° 19 (October 1924)
    Edited by Francis Picabia. Published in Barcelona (N° 1-4), New York (N° 5-7), Zurich (N° 8), and Paris (N° 9-19).
    Special numbers:
    • N° 15 'Le Pilhaou-Thibaou', announced as an 'illustrated supplement of 391' (Paris, 10 July 1920)
    • N° 19 (October 1924) 'Journal de l'Instantaneïsme'
    Varying formats (32-56 cm)
  • CONTRIBUTORS
    Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Aragon, Walter C. Arensberg, Céline Arnauld, Hans Arp, Pierre Albert-Birot, André Breton, Gabrielle Buffet, Jean Cocteau, Jean Crotti, Robert Desnos, Paul Dermée, Paul Éluard, Albert Gleizes, M. Goth, Max Jacob, M. Laurencin, René Magritte, Pierre de Massot, E.L.T. Mesens, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Eric Satie, Walter Serner, Philippe Soupault, Tristan Tzara, Edgard Varèse, Marius de Zayas.
  • FACSIMILES/REPRINTS
  • online
  • printed
    • 391 (Le Terrain Vague/Eric Losfeld : Paris, 1960-1966) 2 vols. Several re-editions. Vol. 1: 391 Revue publiée de 1917 à 1924 par Francis Picabia / réédition intégrale présentée par Michel Sanouillet. Bibliography in vol. 1 (p. 145-146) and vol. 2 (p. 260-263). Includes introduction by Philippe Soupault 'Francis Picabia et 391'.
    • Reprinted by Ronny van de Velde (Antwerpen 1993).
    • [anthology] Dawn Ades, '391', in The Dada Reader. A Critical Anthology / edited by Dawn Ades (Tate Publishing : London 2006) 103-144.
  • SECONDARY LITERATURE
  • William A. Camfield
    'Du "291" à 391. Alfred Stiegtliz, Marius de Zayas et Francis Picabia, un dialogue à trois, 1913-1917', in New York et l’art moderne. Alfred Stieglitz et son cercle (1905-1930) (Réunion des musées nationaux etc. : Paris etc. 2004) 117-140. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay (18 October 2004-16 January 2005) and at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (10 February-16 May 2005).
  • Maria Caudill Dennison
    'Francis Picabia’s "Américaine" from the cover of 391, July 1917', in The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1218 (2004) 621-623.
  • Chris Joseph
    'After 391: Picabia's early multimedia experiments' (first version 01/04/2002) [online] (14/02/2008); available at <http://www.chrisjoseph.org/after391/> [accessed 2 August 2011].
  • Béatrice Mousli
    '291-391', in Béatrice Mousli, Max Jacob (Flammarion : Paris 2005) 149-152.
  • Michel Sanouillet
    'Francis Picabia et 391', in 391 / rééd. intégr. de la revue publiée de 1917 à 1924 par Francis Picabia. Vol. 2 (Éric Losfeld/Le Terrain Vague : Paris 1966). Thesis Faculté des Lettres de Paris, 1965.
  • top
  • L.H.O.O.Q. - Picabia and Duchamp
  • Francis Picabia requested Marcel Duchamp's permission to reproduce his 'L.H.O.O.Q.' in a special issue of 391. In December of 1919, however, Duchamp had returned to New York, probably bringing the original example of this work with him. Picabia wrote and asked if he could send the treasured artifact back, but, apparently, the work was held up in transit and Picabia could wait no longer. "My original did not arrive in time and in order not to delay further the printing of 391," Duchamp later explained, "Picabia himself drew the moustache on the Mona Lisa but forgot the beard."
  • Indeed, we can now reconstruct exactly that happened. Picabia purchased a relatively inexpensive engraving of Leonardo's celebrated masterpiece — of the type that can still be acquired on the bookstalls along the Seine even today — inked in a handlebar moustache and, on a separate piece of paper pasted below the image, wrote the same five letters that Duchamp wrote on the original. Finally, at the bottom of the reproduction he wrote in block letters: 'TABLEAU DADA PAR MARCEL DUCHAMP'. Before sending it off to the printers, he circled the portion of the image he wanted reproduced in the magazine, and penciled instructions for the printer along the right margin (requesting that the image be reproduced the same size as the engraving, and that the text be typeset rather than handwritten).
  • In the very next issue of 391 (Issue 12, March 1920), which was devoted to presenting Manifestos of Dada, the image appeared — more or less — exactly as Picabia had instructed. For all intents and purposes, this image represented an accurate facsimile of the original, except for the fact, as Duchamp was probably the first to notice, Picabia forgot the goatee. [...]
  • Over the years, whenever the subject of Picabia's replica came up, Duchamp always delighted in pointing out the fact that his old friend had forgotten the goatee. Some twenty years would pass before he would be given the opportunity to rectify this omission. In the early 1940s, the original Picabia replica of the L.H.O.O.Q. mysteriously resurfaced, found by no one less than another important Dada artist, Jean Arp. Arp brought the work to Duchamp for authentication, telling him that he had discovered it "while browsing in a bookstore." Duchamp seized the opportunity to "complete" the image by very carefully adding in black ink the goatee that Picabia had forgotten and, using a blue fountain pen, writing the following inscription: "moustache par Picabia / barbiche par Marcel Duchamp", indicating, of course, that whereas he had made the goatee, Picabia was responsible for the moustache. This incident represents the very first time in Duchamp's career that he was asked to indicate the conformity (or lack thereof) of a work he made that had been replicated by another artist, a practice that would be repeated on numerous occasions throughout the remaining years of artistic career.
  • TEXT CREDITS
    Francis Naumann, www.francisnaumann.com/DUCHAMP/text2.html [visited 03/2009]
  • IMAGE CREDITS
    Replica by Francis Picabia of a rectified readymade by Marcel Duchamp; engraving and pasted pieces of paper, handwritten inscriptions in pencil. Signed and dated lower right: Moustaches par Picabia / barbiche par Marcel Duchamp / Avril 1942.