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Games of preferences

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Author

Authors Louis Aragon, André Breton, Robert Desnos, Benjamin Péret

Description

Undated collective manuscript in the form of a table by Louis Aragon, André Breton, Robert Desnos and Benjamin Péret.

The game of preferences is one of those surrealist games whose literary properties aren’t obvious, but from which learn a lot about their authors. We have here, following a game of questions and answers of which only the answers have survived, a series of tables showing the ‘preferences’ of Breton, Desnos, Aragon and Péret. Given the people involved, this session must have taken place before 1930 and is perhaps contemporary with the investigation of sexuality, unless it announces its premises. Indeed, the Final table is devoted to each person’s erotic preferences, which allows us to complete this group portrait. [Site Atelier André Breton, 2005]

Surrealist game of ‘Preferences’, sd.
6 pages handwritten in blue ink in-16 oblong by the participants in the game, each page forms a table where the names of the participants follow one another horizontally, and the categories of objects proposed to their choice are given vertically:

Breton    Péret    Aragon    Desnos
Aperitif    Absinthe    Absinthe    Absinthe    Absinthe
Alcoho    Quetsch    Whisky    Fine Martell    Raki
Iced drink   Coffee    Café liégeois    Poire la belle Hélène   Wine

[sale catalogue, 2003, spelling corrected]

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.