VVV

VVV was a journal or magazine developed by André Breton, along with Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, with David Hare as editor and publisher. It only lasted 3 issues and it's primary purpose was the dissemination of Surrealist ideas, or :

V+V+V. We say …_ …_...__ that is not only V as a vow – and energy – to return to a habitable and conceivable world, Victory over the forces of regression and of death unloosed at present on the earth, but also V beyond this first Victory, for this world can no more and ought no more, be the same, V over that which tends to perpetuate the enslavement of man by man. VV of the double Victory, V again over all that is opposed to the emancipation of the spirit, of which the first indispensable condition is the liberation of man whence VVV towards the emancipation of the spirit, through these necessary stages: it is only in this that our activity can recognize this end Or again: one knows that to V which signifies the View around us, the eye turned towards the external world, the conscious surface, Some of us have not ceased to oppose VV the View inside us, the eye turned toward the interior world and the depths of the unconscious whence VVV towards a synthesis, in the third term, of these two Views, the first V with its axis on the EGO, and the reality principle, the second VV on the SELF and the pleasure principle – the resolution of their contradiction tending only to the continual, systematic enlargement of the field of consciousness towards a total view. VVV which translates all the reactions of the eternal upon the actual, of the psychic upon the physical, and the account of the myth in process of formation beneath the VEIL of happenings.

Irene Hoffmann wrote a series of essays on Surrealism. One essay describes VVV:

Another New York journal that represented Surrealism was VVV, published by the young American sculptor David Hare. With Breton, Ernst, and Duchamp as editorial advisors, VVV gave exiled Surrealist writers and artists great exposure in the United States. Modeled on Minotaure and more substantial than View, VVV's three issues feature "Poetry, plastic arts, anthropology, sociology, psychology." The first issue (October 1942) has a cover design by Ernst and includes writing by Breton. Reflecting new connections within the New York art community, this issue also featured contributions by artist Robert Motherwell and critic Harold Rosenberg. The next issue, a double number (March 1943), has front and back covers by Duchamp.

The front cover is an anonymous etching representing an allegory of death that Duchamp appropriated. The back cover features the shape of a woman's profile cut out of the cover with a piece of chicken wire inserted in the opening. The final issue of VVV (February 1944) is similarly creative and dynamic. With a bold cover designed by Matta, this issue features many fold-out pages of varying sizes, a combination of different papers, and many color images.

In addition to extending the life of the Surrealist movement, American reviews such as View and VVV provided a forum for communication between the Surrealists and a growing number of emerging American artists. For artists who later would make up the Abstract Expressionist group, the Surrealists were a significant and liberating influence. While Surrealism's potency was in decline by this time, artists of the next generation would continue to explore its tenets.

Although neither Dada nor Surrealism revolutionized society as profoundly as their proponents had hoped, they left an indelible mark on art and writing. These iconoclastic impulses of these movements remain rich sources of artistic inspiration. The remarkable journals they generated have preserved a detailed record of the revolutionary atmosphere in which they were conceived and generated. Through their journals, the Dadaists and Surrealists defined and broadcast their views of the world, and expressed their hopes to transform and liberate art and culture. For admirers of the rich and revolutionary ideas of these movements, these journals offer unique insights into the minds of their creators.
 

In the OralHistory section of the Archives of American Art, Robert Motherwell, who was involved with VVV tells us:

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, what about VVV magazine? Weren't you involved with that at some point?

ROBERT MOTHERWELL: Yes.

PAUL CUMMINGS: How did that come about? There weren't a lot of issues of that, were there?

ROBERT MOTHERWELL: No. I'll tell you what I remember - and there's a lot I don't remember. in
France before the war I think Skira - but I'm not sure - published an extremely elaborate deluxe art
magazine called Minotaure that increasingly became a vehicle for the Surrealists. The Surrealists were
proselyters. Which the other artists weren't at all. They very badly wanted a vehicle here. By hook or by
crook slowly some money was raised. The actual editor was André Breton who always was the chief of
everything surrealist. I think Marcel Duchamp and max Ernst if I remember were associate editors. But the
Surrealists had a feeling - not really realizing that artists in America are not taken very seriously - that they
were politically radical, etcetera, they were aliens, exiles, etcetera, and that ostensibly there should be an
American editor. There was also some effort to get some Americans to contribute. William Carlos Williams
and so on. And so for a time I accepted the role simply to help them out. Then one day it became clear to
me in an angry discussion in French, which I only partly understood, that they had also assumed that I had
American connections and could raise some money. Which I didn't have, and couldn't. Then I got furious
and resigned. And the compromise was that Lionel Abel and I co-edited. And then what transpired was that
Abel, who had no job, no money, no anything, asked for the colossal sum of twenty-five dollars a week
simply in order to exist while he was gathering the manuscripts and all the rest of it. And again, they got
furious at that and fired him. Then I said, "I resign." Then David hare who had, I think, an independent
income agreed to be the nominal editor. Something very interesting to me that always amuses me is how the
name VVV came about. They wanted to invent a twenty-seventh letter in the alphabet. In French the letter
W is double V (VV). And so they hit on the idea of having triple V (VVV) as the twenty-seventh letter. And
Breton also didn't know a word of English. And as sort of their American adviser, lieutenant, liaison officer,
I pointed out to him that for reasons I didn't understand double V in English is pronounced double U so that
it would not translate; in English you would have to call it triple U when nevertheless the sign was three V's
and it really wouldn't work. He would not accept that it wouldn't work. And it used to confuse everybody.
People didn't know whether to say V-V-V or triple V or triple U or whatever. But if it were literally
transcribed into English the proper title would have been triple U. And the fact that they choose V with the
way that English-speaking people say V made it not translate. Well, if you said triple U the name of the
magazine immediately Americans would have got the point. But it was always called triple V and nobody
got the point. It seems senseless.

PAUL CUMMINGS: Well, it's like the classic V U V combination.

ROBERT MOTHERWELL: Yes, exactly

Although David Hare was the editor, Breton maintained strict control of the content. Breton, who flatly refused to learn English, found a backer, Bernard Ries, an accountant and art lover, who lived on 67th St.  Editorial meetings were held
there, or at P. Guggenheim's apartment or at Breton place off Washington Square, which Breton ruled with an iron fist.