Artaud’’s Revolutionary Messages

Published here in its entirety in English, Artaud’s Revolutionary Messages collects Antonin Artaud’s political, aesthetic and philosophical writings during his travels to Mexico in 1936.

Written around the same time as his seminal work The Theatre and its Double, it captures a crucial point in Artaud’s life shortly before he was admitted to a mental asylum in which he was to spend a significant part of his later life.

Revolutionary Messages contains conferences that Artaud gave at the University of Mexico, articles from the daily Mexican newspaper El Nacional Revolucionario and a study of three seminal artists of the time influenced by or from Mexico: Franz Hals, Ortiz Monasterio and Maria Izquierdo.

Not only will you gain crucial insight into Artaud’s time in Mexico and his vision of a ＂total revolution,＂ which he places in distinction to Marxist and Surrealist conceptions of revolution, but you will deepen your understanding of the philosophical roots of his theatrical project, which ultimately shaped modern theatre and dance.

The publication includes an introduction by the translator, Joel White, and a preface by Professor of European Philosophy, Howard Caygill.

Antonin Artaud (1896 - 1948) was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde. Artaud’s most significant contribution to drama theory is his theater of cruelty and, although it was not widely embraced in practice, the ideas have been, and continue to be, the subject of many essays on modern theater.

Joel White completed a double European Masters in Contemporary European Philosophy at Kingston University, UK, (CREMP) and Paris VIII (Saint-Denis), France, and has a PhD is from King’s College London, UK. He has published on the work of Artaud in Performance Philosophy, Shakespeare and Walter Benjamin in Angelaki and a short translation of Artaud’s work in Inventory.