- Jean Benoît
Jean Benoît is an artist called "The Enchanter of Serpents," best known for his surrealist sculptures. He was born in Quebec, Canada, and studied
art at the "Ecole des Beaux Arts de Montréal" where he metMimi Parent whom he married in 1948. He metAndre Breton in 1959, joined theSurrealist group that same year. In 1959 he also performed "Exécution Du Testament Du Marquis De Sade" for which he made costumes. The dark, grotesque characters wear sharp, seemingly-mechanical pieces mixed biomorphic, anamilistic shapes that make the humans look like torture devices. Breton mentioned Benoit in "Surrealism and Painting": "STAND ASIDE to let the Marquis de Sade pass 'in his own likeness' and reinvented by Jean Benoît with all his powers." One sculpture called "Book Cover for Magnetic Fields" features demonic figures ripping an egg from a book. "Magnetic Fields" was the name of the book Breton wrote withPhilippe Soupault which Breton called the first surrealist book. Many of his works include demonic figures, brutal sexual images, exaggerated phalluses, and so on. [http://homepage.mac.com/photomorphose/benoit0.html]External links
* [http://www.zazie.at/SpecialEditions/JeanBenoit/00_WebPages/Entree.htm Jean Benoît ou L'amour à L'état sauvage]
* [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0000685 The Canadian Encyclopedia: Jean Benoît]
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