Marcel Mariën

Marcel Mariën (1920-1993) was a writer, artist, and filmmaker immersed in a wide breadth of criticism and philosophy. His publications and writings included essays, journalism, fiction, poetry, histories, autobiography, scripts, and genre-bending experiments. The youngest member of the Belgian Surrealist movement, Mariën would become both a critic and a historian of the group, publishing prolific oeuvres and correspondences of Belgian Surrealism in its aftermath. While Mariën’s political alignments shifted over the course of his life, he consistently upheld the necessity to reject fascism, dedicating many of his writings to understanding fascism's ideological functionalities. Born in Antwerp, Mariën fought for Belgium during World War II. For nine months, he was held in Görlitz as a prisoner of war. Mariën spent most of his life in Brussels and he also spent significant time in New York City and Communist China