Metamorphosis in 391: A Cryptographic Collaboration by Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Erik Satie

Abstract

Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Erik Satie each contributed to a page of Picabia's magazine 391, published in June 1924. Picabia contributed a drawing, Satie a polemical writing, and Man Ray a seemingly abstract poem. Metamorphosis and interpretative simultaneity are both subjects and devices of this three part collaborative effort.The page involves multiple levels of deliberate codification involving interrelated references to the Arensberg Circle, Satie's ballet Mercure, Renaissance art of Raphael and Albrecht Durer, the Morse code, as well as dadaist and futurist poetics.The mutative quality of possible interpretations suggests that the page is meant to be understood through multiple, even divergent and simultaneous, readings. The resulting interpretative flux recalls Picabia's own multi-layered approach to painting, which may serve as a model for understanding the operations of this 391 page. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.