Prose from Poetry Magazine

Photographs of Joyce Mansour

Originally Published: June 01, 2023
Black and white photo of a woman in profile posing in front of a window. Bright light casts shadows on her face. A bird sculpture is behind her.

Joyce Mansour at her home in Paris, 1977.

 

Joyce Mansour sits reading or talking at a table next to a semi-reclined Nanos Valaoritis. Ted Joans stands beside them, leaning over with hands on knees.
Joyce Mansour, Nanos Valaoritis, and Ted Joans at a Surrealist meeting at a gallery (with a painting by Wifredo Lam in the back), Paris, 1975.

 

Joyce Mansour sits at a small table with drinks lighting a cigar in the middle of Joans and Valaoritis who appear to be talking.
Ted Joans, Joyce Mansour, and Nanos Valaoritis (with Alain Jouffroy in the mirror) at Café La Promenade de Venus, Paris, 1975.

 

Joyce Mansour stares straight ahead, leaning against a mantle in her home filled with paintings and sculptures

Joyce Mansour at her home in Paris, 1977. Reflecting on this encounter, Kalter writes:

Ted Joans introduced me to Joyce Mansour in 1975. In 1977, we went to her impressive apartment in Paris in the 16th arrondissement, filled with artworks from Papua New Guinea and surrealist paintings by artists like Wifredo Lam. At the time she was preparing a book of poems for the publisher Le Soleil Noir, called Faire signe au machiniste. The cover and interior illustrations were to be by Jorge Camacho, but she needed a portrait of herself for this publication. From all the contact sheets that we looked at after I had photographed her, one was chosen for the book. She later dedicated the book to me with a very special annotation: “Avec l’amitié noire et blanche,” meaning “with the black and white friendship,” referring of course to the black and white photographs I took of her.

This collection of photographs is part of “When Can I See You Again: The Poetry of Joyce Mansour,” translated by Emilie Moorhouse. You can read the rest of the portfolio in the June 2023 issue. All photographs are copyright © Marion Kalter.

Marion Kalter is a photographer who lives and works in France and Austria.

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