I was first introduced to the work of French Surrealist photographer and painter Pierre Molinier in the mid-90s by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Gen had a fantastic velvet covered book that simultaneously looked both luxurious and terribly smutty. The book reproduced Molinier’s work at about actual size, which is to say, fairly small (6 by 8 inches approx). It was easy to see Gen’s attraction to Molinier’s work and the influence was clear in the pandrogynous project which would be embarked on by Breyer/P-Orridge soon after. (It was readily apparent that Joel-Peter Witkin was no stranger to Molinier’s work, either).

Molinier was a seriously strange fellow. He allegedly had sex with his dead sister’s corpse and photographed it. His bizarre fetish photographs were a very intimate disclosure about his own sexuality and were considered absolutely outrageous for their time. (They’re still outrageous! It wasn’t easy finding one that would work on this blog without offending too many people). Using himself as his primary subject, Molinier’s photo-montage art-form was often about depicting himself as a female (or hermaphroditic) alter-ego usually in the act of… well, auto-fellatio or doing it to him/her self in other creative ways. Using masks, hand-carved dildos and prosthetic limbs, Molinier’s work was done mostly for private pleasures, but eventually Molinier sent some of his pieces to Andre Breton who showed the work in 1956, thereby placing Molinier in the Surrealist camp. Early attempts to publish his work were made difficult by printers being reluctant to handle it and were abandoned, but eventually several monographs were published.

In 1976, Molinier, in poor health, committed suicide (like his own father) at the age of 76.

Above is a strange little animation that takes Molinier’s work as a point of departure. Much more chaste than Molinier’s own work, you might want to watch this first before you decide if you want to go any further.

Japanese blog with some of Pierre Molinier’s paintings and photo montages NSFW (unless you work in a really weird place!)