Touching and Imagining ─ An Introduction to Tactile Art

Jan ?vankmajer wrote this remarkable book on tactile art when he stopped directing films after censorship by the Czechoslovakian government and experimented intensively with tactile phenomena and the creative imagination. Illustrated with over 100 images, the book is organized around many reproductions of ?vankmajer's wondrous tactile art objects, tactile poems, experiments and games. It also includes dialogues with, and artworks by, other collaborating artists from the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists. ?vankmajer also gathers together as contributors such notable exponents of tactual experience as Edgar Allen Poe, Guillaume Apollinaire, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Ay-O, and F.T. Marinetti.

Michael Havas, producer of some of ?vankmajer's films, says of the book: 'it is typically ?vankmajer: erudite and very consequential. Sometimes also very funny and erotic. Totally unique.'

Czech Surrealist, Jan ?vankmajer, is best known for his extraordinary animated films, Alice, Faust, Little Otik among them. His work far exceeds the limits of film and, whether film, visual or literary, is connected with the collective activities of the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists.