On January 17, 1938, the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme opened at the Galerie des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. The event, organized by André Breton and Paul Eluard, was a major moment in the 20th century art as key works by Salvador Dali (pictured to the left), Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray were presented to the public for the first time. The evidence of these works as well as this unique moment was captured by photographer Denise Bellon, whose beautiful black and white photography has become synonymous with these works.
Bellon was a photographer for Alliance Photo-Agency, which was founded in 1934, and became an innovative force in photo-reportage bringing the world to Europe through photography. The brief space between World Wars I and II opened an interest in sports, hiking, nudity, amateur parachuting, which Bellon documented for women's magazines. As an ally of the surrealists, Bellon photographed the surrealist expositions in 1938, 1947, 1959 and 1965. To this day, her images are the primary visual documents of many of these works, and her own interest. Bellon's travels to Africa produced some of the first photography from the region to ever be seen by continental Europeans.
Bellon's daughter Yannick and Chris Marker collaborated to create a biographical portrait of Bellon using news footage, narration and her own photography. The result is Remembrance of Things To Come (2001, 42 minutes, black and white, English), a detailed time line of the peaks and valleys of twentieth-century Europe as seen through the eyes of an artist. The film's fluid stream of black and white images and newsreels is mesmerizing. As Bellon's work focused on surrealist art, sports, the human body and "exotic" locales such as Africa, the film's deliberate mix of photographs and moving images operates both as a loving homage to its subject and as free-standing work of exquisite cinematic art.
Remembrances of Things to Come is backed by Yannick Bellon's short film Collette (1950, 26 minutes, black and white, French with English subtitles), which is a journey through the memories of an aging theatrical performer. As the film unfolds, fictitious interviews, made-up plays complete with playbills, stage photographs, and posters are presented. The link between the two films on this DVD goes a bit further than the fact that Denise Bellon's daughter created Collette. Both films seem to reflect on the nature of memories, and the artist's sometimes contradictory role as both an interpreter and creator of events.