Aux abbatoirs de La Villette

Eli Lotar

1929 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Born in Paris of Romanian parents, Lotar was a Surrealist filmmaker and photographer in the circle of René Clair, Luis Buñuel, Germaine Krull, and André Kertész. In 1929 he accepted a commission from the review Documents, the voice of a Surrealist splinter group headed by Georges Bataille, to illustrate the word abattoir (“slaughterhouse”) in the “Dictionary” section of the journal. In response, Lotar produced a photographic reportage of unsparing realism. His images are particularly shocking for their juxtapositions of killing on the one hand and banal order on the other. This subject is an array of amputated calves’ feet.

Artist

Eli Lotar

Date

1929

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift, 2005