Someone already wrote about witches
F*ck.
Do you know what would’ve been good to write about for Halloween, Uncultured Swine?
Witches.
And I’d started a piece focusing on witchcraft and the artist maybe most synonymous with all things mystical, Remedios Varo...
But Katy Hessel of the actually educational and successful
published a piece on the very same subject. Which leads me to believe it’s either the only piece of art herstory remotely related to Halloween or, what’s more likely, that Katy and I are cosmically linked.
With literally minutes of my time wasted, the best I can hope in this situation is not to be the first to talk about Remedios and Mexico’s expat witchy surrealist community, but the best. So let’s do a side by side of what Katy said vs what I’d written and I’ll let you decide…
On introducing the subject
Katy Hessel:
“Born in Spain, and raised in a strict Catholic schooling - from which she rebelled - Varo, in 1937, moved to Paris to join the Surrealists. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and unable to return to her home country, Varo, by 1941, escaped to Mexico."
Maggie Jean:
I’d first learned about Remedios Varo in relation to friend and fellow Surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington. When researching Carrington’s life in Mexico, Varo’s name was cited as an influence on her mystical motifs. ‘Typical,’ I’d thought, ‘always crediting the man.’ It took me way too long in my research to ascertain that Varo was, in fact, female. And from there, it took me .5 of a second to recognise that I am, in fact, a tit.
On Mexico’s ex-pat Surrealists
Katy:
“This was the likes of Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna and Remedios Varo. And I know that they were known collectively as the three witches…”
Hessel in conversation with art historian, Tere Arcq, go on to discuss how Varo fled to Mexico by boat with the help of Frida Kahlo and Helena Rubinstein. Arcq explains that Post-Revolution Mexico city was embracing the arts and open to receiving war exiles; Varo as an exile from the Spanish Civil War and then WWII along with Carrington. But its creative community soon fractured.
Maggie:
Known as ‘Those European bitches’ to Frida Kahlo, the Surrealist ex-patriots tended to keep to their circle. While Varo, Carrington and Kati Horna were influenced by the Surrealist movement in Paris, their interpretation of the mystical, witchcraft and the occult expanded on the earlier Surrealist principles, espoused by Andre Breton. Like the one where he basically says women are unevolved children (in a nice way but!), which might explain what compelled these women to study hex’s.
Varo’s images feel worlds away from the witch works that helped to demonise women.
- Katy Hessel
On the Surrealist relationship to witches
Katy:
“One artist who relished such characters [as witches] was Remedios Varo, the Spanish-born painter who spent from 1941 until her death mostly living in Mexico City “surrounded by cats, stones, crystals and talismans”. Varo – with her best friend, the émigré surrealist Leonora Carrington – studied and practised ancient forms of witchcraft.”
“They [Varo’s depictions] celebrate an ancient wisdom, honouring their female subjects rather than exploiting them. Varo’s witches are beautiful, emanating strength, knowledge and power.”
Maggie:
The surrealist manifesto reads a lot like conversations I’ve had on ketamine; its philosophy, as per founder Breton’s definition, is ‘in the omnipotence of the dream, in the disinterested play of thought’ - so there’s that. But Breton and Freud didn’t begin the rationalisation and unpacking of the imagined worlds, spirituality did. And mysticism did, and witches did.
That these women interpolated the movement to revive a female-centric, so demonised, relationship with magic is very white-girl-going-through-it energy and I love it. The importance of that subversion is potentially only being understood today.
On Varo’s work:
Katy:
“These meticulously rendered, almost renaissance-like works of these women who seem to be trapped in towers; on a quest to reach a higher state of consciousness. They are at once haunting, mesmeric, glowing, magical.”
Maggie:
It’s giving Mr. Burns in the woods.
On Varo’s personal life
Katy, the bestest most professionalist, would never reduce an artist to tawdry details and baseless gossip. That’s the void I aim to fill.
It was clear that Varo was always sharp. She was encouraged into drawing by her father, a hydraulic engineer, and was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando by the age of sixteen. Biographers label her as rebellious, but she was never naughty (see: Leonora Carrington, that bintch was rabid). I sense that if Varo was the sex I’d originally assumed, they’d call it ‘self-possession and independence of thought.’
She was a meticulous painter, yes, but where her organisational prowess really shone was in marriage. Gerardo Lizárraga and Varo married in their early 20s and were ethically non-monogamous, open, casual. I don’t want the admin of one m*n, let alone multiple, so I respect the hustle. Her eventual romance with French poet, Benjamin Péret, took her to Paris where he was like, ‘baby I’ll show you the world.’ The world being a group of weird as f*ck surrealists and the impoverished life of an artist.
During WWII shit got real, as we know. Varo saw that her husband, Lizarraga was at a French internment camp and bribed authorities to release him. She kinda left Peret around this time, not for her husband, but a dude named Victor Brauner whom I wont get into because she got back with Peret anyway (I love this woman). Peret and Varo were under immediate threat from occupying forces in Paris, so soon yeeted to Mexico.
Sure, Varo dabbled with the m*n - she even had another marriage during the Mexico years. But the enduring relationship in her life was with Carrington, whom she first met with in Paris and then again Mexico. The pair called each-other daily, creatively informed one another, hosted dinner parties, wrote stories, pulled pranks. The three witches, Varo, Carrington and Horna - laughed a lot. And I think that’s more spooky to the m*n than witchcraft.
Ok. I think there’s a clear winner here and it might be the person with a weekly Guardian column. Please look at some of Katy Hessel’s work, she has a Substack (tagged above), podcast, column and a book. She also actually knows what she’s talking about.
Lots of lurve to you all, thank you for reading (obsessed that you do) and thanks Grace for editing (yep, someone edits this crap and she is so kind about it).
C U Next Tuesday!!!!!
Maggie Jean xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo