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From The Studio To The Field: André Breton’S ‘Hopi Notebook’, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Articles

André Breton’s visit to the Hopi villages of Arizona in 1945 had an impact on his view of the world and of the objects he collected. His response to what he witnessed in the month when the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was reflected in the notebook he kept on his trip, known as the “Hopi Notebook,” and in the poem he began writing that summer, “Ode to Charles Fourier.” His belief in the liveliness of repurposed things, haunted by their former lives, was particularly pertinent to the Hopi katsina figures he collected on his trip …