This NY Times article alerted me to the fascinating ink on paper works by Unica Zürn at New York’s The Drawing Centre. Zürn suffered from repeated depressive illnesses for much of her life. She lived for a period with Hans Bellmer, taking her life in 1970, within 6 months of splitting up with him. The show takes its title of one her novels, Dark Spring, in which, according to the Kirkus review at Amazon “Preadolescent sexuality merges with depressive fantasy – to devastating (if ineffably morbid) effect”.
Unica Zürn
Untitled, 1961, ink on paper
For all this difficult background, I find the work poetic, light and imaginative – speaking of a place I can only think of as having been solace and centre for her in what was obviously a challenging life. Despite her eventual suicide, I see in her works a triumph for the grounded, embodied sense of self that inhabits a centre, rather than being banished to the periphery – an alternative in which life (for all of us) is unmanageable.
More works from the exhibition are at The Drawing Centre.
