Dragon Hill Residency Explores Jean Cocteau's Apolitical Beauty Through Lydia Figes' Text

Key facts

• The Dragon Hill X ArtReview Writers Residency runs throughout 2024.
• Six writers selected by ArtReview and visual artists from Unit gallery participate.
• The residency is held at Dragon Hill in Mougins, near Nice, France.
• Dragon Hill was designed by Jacques Couëlle in 1964.
• Past residents include Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Yves Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, and Leo Castelli.
• First resident Lydia Figes stayed in May and early June 2024.
• Figes' text discusses Jean Cocteau's 'Secrets de Beauté' (1945), republished in 2024 as 'Secrets of Beauty' translated by Juliet Powys.
• Cocteau wrote the original during a train journey in March 1945 to visit his lover Jean Marais.
• Cocteau remained apolitical during the German occupation, befriending figures like Arno Breker.
• His stance contrasted with political artists like Picasso and Max Ernst.
• Cocteau was criticized by Surrealist leader André Breton and called an 'ubiquitist' by François Mauriac.
• His career included poetry, literature, visual arts, opera, and film, such as 'Beauty and the Beast' (1946).
• The text explores art's detachment from politics and moral consciousness.
• Cocteau viewed creativity as an external force, with the poet as its servant.
• Theodor Adorno's 'Aesthetic Theory' (1970) later examined art's autonomy.
• An exhibition 'Jean Cocteau: The Juggler's Revenge' is at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice through September 16, 2024.