PHOSPHOR – issue number 2

“It would not be an exaggeration to state that, without grasping the fundamental and continuing importance of objects (both poetically and critically) within the surrealist movement, one would fail to understand Surrealism itself.”

from the editorial, Of Phantoms and Representations, by Kenneth Cox

72 pages • B5 format • ISSN 1755-0009

texts, stories, poems images on the theme of

PHANTOM OBJECTS

includes

Bruno Solarik, Palpable Phantoms - as perceived by the interwar Czechoslovak surrealists

Tributes to Franklin Rosemont by Michaël Löwy and Guy Ducornet

Fetish and The Magic of Objects - two essays by Jan Švankmajer

Midland Red – a short story by John Hartley Williams

The Substanced Object and Melancholy Ghosts – two illustrated reflections by Eugenio Castro

Stephen J. Clark, The Absent Double – an essay on objects

Pervert, Tramp or Delinquent? - reflections by Peter Overton upon the game ‘Explorations of Absence’ played by Leeds Surrealist Group

poems by - Andrew Boobier, Franklin Rosemont

images by – Jan Drabble, Kathleen Fox, Peter Overton, Franklin Rosemont, John Welson

Price £ 6.00

plus additional postage – £0.76 UK 2^nd Class

AIRMAIL: £1.90 Europe – £3.00 Rest of World

SURFACE MAIL: £1.80 Europe & Rest of World

Cheques / POs / IMOs payable to “Surrealist Editions”

to: Phosphor, 6 Aberdeen Grove, LEEDS, LS12 3QY, England

*** To transact via PayPal please email your order to surrealisteditions@surrealism.madasafish.com and you will receive a payment request ***

Manchester Anarchist Bookfair 2009

LEEDS SURREALIST GROUP will have a stall at this year’s Manchester Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday, 26th September - with Surrealist Editions titles, plus Phosphor, Prehensile Tail and Manticore available.

Further details of the bookfair can be found on www.bookfair.org.uk

London Anarchist Bookfair 2009

LEEDS SURREALIST GROUP will have a stall at this year’s Anarchist Bookfair in London on Saturday, 24th October - with Surrealist Editions titles, plus Phosphor, Prehensile Tail and Manticore available.

Further details of the bookfair can be found on www.anarchistbookfair.org

A Phosphor Evening at Seven Artspace

We are presenting an evening of short talks, film and poetry on the theme ‘Narratives of Absence’ of the first issue of our magazine PHOSPHOR.

– including documentary film of Ted Joans reading in Amsterdam 1964; a talk by Gareth Brown on Surrealism & Games; a talk with readings from our game of Explorations of Absence; short films by Gareth Brown, Kathleen Fox, Jean Painlevé & Martin Trippett; poetry readings of work by Andrew Boobier, Kenneth Cox, Ted Joans, Katerina Pinosova – and more!

Commencing at 7.30pm on Thursday, 6th November 2008 at Seven Artspace, Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, Leeds:

 www.sevenleeds.co.uk

Admission £3 – Concessions £2

There will be a Surrealist Editions bookstall and an opportunity for discussions in the venue’s bar after the event.

Anarchist Bookfair 2008

LEEDS SURREALIST GROUP will have a stall at this year’s Anarchist Bookfair in London on Saturday, 18th October - with Surrealist Editions titles, plus Phosphor, Prehensile Tail and Manticore available. 

Further details of the bookfair can be found on www.anarchistbookfair.org

PHOSPHOR – issue number 1

a new magazine manifesting

surrealism’s continuing creative luminescence

“It is ironic that those who like to refer to surrealism’s ‘legacy’ look anywhere but to surrealism itself for its continuity.”

“Today, surrealism’s dynamic has many vectors throughout the world, not only in the form of various organised groups, and in their activities and projections into the public sphere, but also in those individuals who prefer to adventure alone.”

“…what distinguishes such practices that are termed ‘surrealist’ is a question of intention and of intelligence, propelled from within a social, political and moral dimension; it is thus, moreover, a sensibility, a way of looking at and acting upon the world.”

from the editorial, To Be Continued…, by Kenneth Cox

68 pages • B5 format • ISSN 1755-0009

texts, stories, poems images on the theme of

Narratives of Absence

includes

Ted Joans, I, Black Surrealist – an extract from his unpublished autobiography

Eugenio Castro, The Limitless Mirror – a reflection upon absence

Leeds Surrealist Group, from Explorations of Absence – taken from a collective game exploring the relationship between abandoned places, their images and lost objects

short stories by - Rikki Ducornet, Michael Richardson, John Hartley Williams

poems by - Andrew Boobier, Kenneth Cox, Ted Joans, Katerina Pinosova

images by - Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kathleen Fox, Rik Lina, Peter Overton, Martin Trippett, John Welson

Price £ 6.00

plus additional postage – £0.76 UK 2^nd Class

AIRMAIL: £1.90 Europe – £3.00 Rest of World

SURFACE MAIL: £1.80 Europe & Rest of World

Cheques / POs / IMOs payable to “Surrealist Editions”

to: Phosphor, 6 Aberdeen Grove, LEEDS, LS12 3QY, England

*** To transact via PayPal please email your order to surrealisteditions@surrealism.madasafish.com and you will receive a payment request ***

The Bridge of Shadows

POEMS BY STEPHEN J. CLARK &
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL HOWE

in a limited edition of 350 numbered copies

ISBN 978-906238-01-8

now available at a price of £8.00

plus additional postage – £0.76 UK 2nd class

AIRMAIL: £1.80 Europe – £2.90 Rest of World

SURFACE MAIL: £1.50 Europe & Rest of World

Please send cheques, postal orders or IMO’s payable to “Surrealist Editions” to: Surrealist Editions, 6 Aberdeen Grove, LEEDS, LS12 3QY, England.

*** To transact via PayPal please email your order to surrealisteditions@surrealism.madasafish.com and you will receive a payment request ***

The Bridge of Shadows was a project worked on over several years by Stephen J. Clark and Bill Howe, to explore the creative interplay of photographic and verbal images. The photographs are not in any way illustrative of the poems, nor were the poems written in response to the photographic images, both having been created entirely separately, with differing motives. The combination of these poetic artefacts constituted a game of revelation. Through this associative ‘sifting’ of evidence, subtle relationships were revealed and developed between the photographs and poems. Not only standing as an example of the intimacy of collective surrealist activity, the book also becomes an open invitation to its readers to roam in its haunted confines, to play their own revelatory games.

Anthony Earnshaw – a Surrealist Against The Grain

As part of this year’s Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe,

Kenneth Cox of Leeds Surrealist Group will present

an appreciation of our friend and comrade Anthony Earnshaw.

The presentation will include the screening of a short film,

Flick Knives and Forks, that captures Earnshaw’s creative

process and remarkable personality.

Commencing at 9:00pm on Friday, 12th October 2007

Ilkley Playhouse – Wildman Theatre

http://www.ilkleyplayhouse.org/how_to_find_us

***admission to this event is free***

Mickey Has Chopped Off Dumbo’s Left Ear (1999)

http://www.anthonyearnshaw.com

Born in Ilkley in 1924, the same year as the publication of the first Manifesto of Surrealism, Anthony Earnshaw died in Saltburn-by-Sea in 2001, and is fondly remembered by his many friends. Most of his life was spent in Leeds, where, as a young factory worker, he discovered surrealism through books in the city’s Central Library. From starting to paint “strange” pictures, he eventually left the factory behind in his mid-life, to become an art lecturer and full-time practitioner. He was an extraordinary artist, perhaps best known for his boxed assemblages, but also painted and drew; he was an occasional writer and aphorist, producing several illustrated books, including the highly-original Musrum, co-written with his great friend, Eric Thacker. Those who knew Tony will recall his subversive and oblique wit, the humour that was leaning at every corner, waiting to deflate pretension and pomposity. Surrealism – together with anarchism and jazz – proved to be an abiding inspiration that brought him into contact with many kindred spirits, rebels and poets. As Earnshaw himself put it, “Surrealism for me was home. I was among friends at last, having been away in a foreign land all my life. The spell of it then cast remains a frisky imp haunting my life.”

Down Victory! by Peter Overton

The first title on our Surrealist Editions imprint

Down Victory! by Peter Overton

with an introduction & afterword by Kenneth Cox

in a limited edition of 350 numbered copies

ISBN 978-906238-00-1

is now available at a price of £6.00

plus additional postage – £0.76 UK 2nd class

AIRMAIL: £1.50 Europe – £2.40 Rest of World

SURFACE MAIL: £1.20 Europe & Rest of World

Please send cheques, postal orders, or IMO’s payable to “Surrealist Editions” to: Surrealist Editions, 6 Aberdeen Grove, LEEDS, LS12 3QY, England.

*** To transact via PayPal please email your order to surrealisteditions@surrealism.madasafish.com and you will receive a payment request ***

Down Victory! presents a series of fourteen photographs, together with accompanying texts, of an abandoned, ‘worthless’ place that was investigated by Peter Overton, as the preliminary to a collective game, Explorations of Absence, played by Leeds Surrealist Group over 2000-2001.

“What the subtle interplay of these photographs and texts conveys is the surreality that is latent within the real, the process of subjective revelation; as well as inviting us to make our own explorations and to look at the world in an entirely different way. There have been many books about surrealism published in this country, but very few books that are in themselves surrealist. This is the first in a very long time.” – from the Introduction.