ABSTRACT
Eli Lotar's photographs of the Parisian abattoir at La Villette were commissioned by Georges Bataille in 1929 and appeared in the journal, Documents, alongside Bataille's Critical Dictionary essay, "Abattoir". Part of the anthropological insight rests on the intense psychic and physical connection between the abattoir workers and their animals within the closed-off but nevertheless parallel world of La Villette—what Cox astutely describes as "a curious para-urban site. Often referred to as "the city of blood," the abattoir and surrounding live cattle market at La Villette was erected in the 1860s as a part of Haussmann's renovation and modernization of Paris. As Germaine Krull's apprentice and partner from 1926, Lotar initially came into contact with Krull's New Vision sensibility before drifting into the surrealist photographic circle, setting up a photography studio specializing in portraits with the surrealist photographer, Jacques-Andre Boiffard in 1930.
