Animaux exquis. Collages, photomontages et autres trafics d’espèces

Max Ernst was the first in 1933 to define collage as “the coupling (l’accouplement) of two realities, irreconcilable (inaccouplables) in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them” (the term accouplement in French refers to mating). This artistic technique thus became the graphic embodiment of the hybridity that characterised Surrealist poetics. While Exquisite corpse drawings gave us a glimpse of the first hybrid animals, other attempts were to follow suit, inventing veritable bestiaries. In this study, three works from three different periods of Surrealism (1948 to the present day) employing three distinct techniques ranging from collage to photomontage are examined to explore the new species born of these couplings. These include Georges Hugnet’s Spumifères, Erró’s meca-animaux, and Laurent Albarracin and Maëlle de Coux’s bird-men. The analysis of these bestiaries, which engage in a dialogue with the natural history model, aims to interrogate the evolution of the relationship to animality and the critical value of these interspecific couplings between humans, machines, and animals.