Dark Spring
1969
Book, 20.2 x 15.2 cm, 115 p., language : English, publisher : Exact Change, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000, ISBN : 978-1-878972-30-9.
Materials: ink, paper
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2028/522).
Literary synopsis
Dark Spring is an autobiographical coming-of-age novel that reads more like an exorcism than a memoir. Unica Zürn traces the roots of her obsessions: the exotic father she idealized, the "impure" mother she detested, the masochistic fantasies and onanistic rituals which she said described "the erotic life of a little girl based on my own childhood." Dark Spring is the story of a young girl's simultaneous introduction to sexuality and mental illness, revealing a different aspect of the "mad love" so romanticized by the (predominantly male) Surrealists.
Authorship: Artist Author.
Creative Strategy: No Link to Artworks.
Genre: Memoir.
Publishing: Publishing House.
Theme: Childhood, Mental Illness, Sex.
