Ontological Graffiti
"Ontological Graffiti" Michael Bertiaux
Michael Bertiaux is a writer for whom the term complex is not broad enough. For anyone who has read his seminal (an obscurant, confusing, preposterous, beautiful and strange) work the Voudon Gnostic Workbook is aware of the tangential nature of Bertiaux's writing. He is a poet magician, lost on the path of Gnosis.
When I lived in Chicago in the 1990s I was aware of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook but for some reason I had it in my head that Bertiaux was already dead. Little did I know then that he was in fact very much alive, just a recluse as I would eventually become. For decades his fame grew even as he hid among his own practice and researches, only becoming a public figure in 2004, to have cancer put a hold on that for nearly another decade.
Bertiaux's praxis centers on an organized group of Vodouisants that began in Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago's southside sometime in the mid 1960s. From these experiences Bertiaux developed the concepts of Voudon Gnosis that have grown into a formidable tradition of its own, with followers throughout the world.
Which brings us to his recent exceptional magnum opus "Ontological Graffiti." An incredible work, spanning the breadth of Bertiaux's ideas and produced in a way that we are given some insight into his patterns of thinking and creative practice.
The book itself, published by none other than Fulgur Press - the originators of talismanic publishing, is an object of art. Hand stitched bound signatures, letterpress embossing on the cover, dustjacket, and endpapers, high resolution full colour reproductions of dozens of Bertiaux's paintings and packed with black and white ink illustrated annotations throughout the book is nothing short of breathtaking.
Fulgur have outdone themselves with this edition. The satin wine coloured cloth binding with metallic blue embossed text and illustration are hidden under a beautiful thick papered dust jacket with similar metallic text over a dark toned Bertiaux image. The endpapers, similarly embossed with the metallic illustrations open up to full colour plates throughout.
In conversation with Robert Ansell of Fulgur its clear that, while he practices the binding traditions of craftsmanship found throughout publishing history (stitched signatures, true headbands, lithograph printing) he has no interest in merely replicating the publishing aesthetics and traditions of the past. Fulgur are pushing the form of occult publishing, design, and typography into a much needed modern aesthetic, adding to the history of bookbinding at an aesthetic level of Chatto & Windus in the 19th century.
Bertiaux's practice is one of idiosyncratic Haitian oriented vodoun mixed with European grimoire traditions and the spiritism movement of mediumship. Through the practice of mediumship Bertiaux creates vivid paintings that in turn act as sigilizations of various spirits contacted in a transcendental state.
Outlining the practice of the infamous 'Hyde Park Lodge' in Chicago during the period of 1965-75 the lodge represented a collective centered around the guidance of Dr. Hector-Francois Jean Main. Working with the material of the Vodoun Gnostic Workbook, Bertiaux's historically dense and abstract guidebook to Vodoun Gnosis the Lodge utilized the acrylic paintings as part of their rituals.
"Art that is inspired by certain forms of ontology and the use of oracles - or Ontological Graffiti - is interactive with the world of voudoun spirits, and has its validation in the exploration of all occult utterances, and the true placement of these utterances in a hierarchical-logical graph, or map, of the different powers which each occult school claims as their ideal or goal." - M. Bertiaux, 'Ontological Graffiti' pg 76
'Ontological Graffiti' is an absolute must for any occultist's library. It is an object of pure art, transcending the concept of talismanic publish and merging it with the history of large format art books, Bertiaux and Fulgur have created a work of historic proportions. A beautiful, mad, illuminating, transcendent piece of historic publishing at its zenith by an artist whose gnosis is manifest in a congregation of incredible visual art and astounding writing.
Get yourself a copy before it goes out of print here:
Ontological Graffiti Michael Bertiaux fulgur.co.uk
