Ernst, Max

Four, five years ago I became an obsessive compulsive in collecting art; I scoured sites like Art.com and ebay for commercial prints of the favorite standbys.  Prints by Goya, Van Gogh, Duchamp, even Monet became mainstays in my apartment.  I had always felt I could be an artist at a very minimal level (but didn't think to pursue it in school or in my personal time), and to see the masters and feel their works on a daily basis made my efficiency feel cultured, at the very least.

Then came along Max Ernst.  I don't recall exactly how I found this surrealist/dada artist, but once I found a print of his work, it became an another obsession.  The more I researched his works, the more I realized I could actually purchase his art through auction houses and get limited prints with his personal, pencil engrained signature.  No longer were commercially replicated works limited to me and my living space; I now could hang living, breathing documents that recorded an artist's moment in time.  I became fascinated, and in typical due course, proceeded to watch dvds, purchase limited prints, and read books regarding Loplop and his life.

Above was the second Max Ernst print I ever purchased; I've always felt it to be a mixture between a Lovecraftian world of Cthulhu and a sort of disc shaped, unnameable object in the sky.  Again, I felt that the print demonstrated something that is both buzzing around us all and at the same time not quite accurate or material enough to pinpoint.

A fantastic blog regarding Loplop and his imagery can be found here : http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2012/02/of-this-men-shall-know-nothing.html.  In retrospect, the author's findings make a lot of sense and tie into the sense I've felt about Ernst since I first began purchasing his works.  In retrospect, I wish I had been attuned to the situation to have made a similar argument in this blog.

Reviewing Ernst's work over the years, I had never paid much attention to the imagery of his works, outside of the fact I enjoyed it all.  Ernst died in 1976, and alas, I was born in 1976.  In the grand scheme of things, I would like to think there was some sort of connection between these two facts.  I sincerely doubt that is the case.  But to this day, Max Ernst and his works, to me, feel like a connection to this world and others.  A connection to something that exists and feels natural to us at all times, yet simultaneously repulses us and begs us to look away.  I refuse to look away, and hope that you too will likewise.