Documents (magazine)

Documents was financed by Georges Wildenstein, an influential Parisian art dealer and sponsor of the Surrealists.

[1] Called "a war machine against received ideas" by Bataille,[2] Documents brought together a wide range of contributors, ranging from dissident surrealists including Michel Leiris, André Masson, and Joan Miró, to Bataille's numismatist colleagues at the National Library's Cabinet of Coins and Medals.

[4] A regular section of the magazine called the "Critical Dictionary" offered short essays on such subjects as "Absolute," "Eye," "Factory Chimney," and "Keaton (Buster)."

Documents was a direct challenge to "mainstream" Surrealism as championed by André Breton, who in his Second Surrealist Manifesto of 1929 derided Bataille as "(professing) to wish only to consider in the world that which is vilest, most discouraging, and most corrupted.

"[5] The violent juxtapositions of pictures and text in Documents were intended to provide a darker and more primal alternative to what Bataille viewed as Breton's disingenuous and weak brand of Surrealist art.