Henri Michaux: Images du monde visionnaire

Belgian-French writer and artist Henri Michaux (1899−1984) is best known for his surreal travel stories through real and fictional lands. In addition, many of Michaux’s artworks, which are usually referred to as ​‘art informel’ and ​‘lyrical abstraction’, have been marked by psychedelic experiments with hashish and mescaline since the 1950s.

This is also the case in the short film Images du monde visionnaire, which Michaux made in 1963 in collaboration with French filmmaker Éric Duvivier for the pharmaceutical company Sandoz, which in those years conducted research in the field of psychotropic drugs but also supported a veritable ​‘cinémathèque de Sandoz’. Images du monde visionnaire attempts to translate the effects of psychotropic drugs into moving images

In this program, Images du monde visionnaire enters into dialogue with two other films which explore mind-expanding territories: La Femme 100 têtes by Éric Duvivier and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome by Kenneth Anger. La Femme 100 têtes is based on a series of works by French surrealist Max Ernst and is a highlight of Duvivier’s scientific surrealist oeuvre. In Kenneth Anger’s groundbreaking Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, surrealist tableaux give way to psychedelic rituals in which mythological and religious figures such as Lord Shiva, Pan and Hecate indulge.

• In collaboration with VANDENHOVE Centre for Architecture and Art in Ghent, which is presenting an exhibition on Henri Michaux until 23 May.
• Program and introduction by Steven Jacobs