Categories Literary magazine Final issue 1924 Based in Barcelona, Catalonia | First issue January 1917 Country Spain Language Spanish | |
391 was a Spanish-language literary magazine published between 1917 and 1924 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
History and profile
391 first appeared in January 1917 in Barcelona, and continued to be published until 1924. The magazine was created by the Dadaist Francis Picabia. Picabia published the first four issues. He was assisted in assembling the magazine by Olga Sacharoff, a Georgian emigre residing in Barcelona.
The title of the magazine derives from Alfred Stieglitz's New York periodical 291 (to which Picabia had contributed), and bore no relation to its contents. Despite Picabia's renown as an artist, it was mostly literary in content, with a wide-ranging aggressive tone, possibly influenced by Alfred Jarry and Apollinaire. There were contributions by two men new to Dada: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. However 391 remained essentially the expression of the inventive, energetic and wealthy Picabia, who stated of it: "Every page must explode, whether through seriousness, profundity, turbulence, nausea, the new, the eternal, annihilating nonsense, enthusiasm for principles, or the way it is printed. Art must be unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible to justify."
Starting from its fifth issue the magazine was published in New York City. Its eighth issue was published in Zurich. Then the magazine was published in Paris until 1924 when its last issue, number 19, was distributed.