Surrealism. A revolutionary movement?

[Jill]

As we have surrealism in the spotlight this week I looked up the subject and found this in the Wiki
Surrealism[1] is a cultural movement that began in the mid-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members. The works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur, however many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost with the works being an artifact, and leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.
The group who formed around Breton aimed to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism is "long live the social revolution, and it alone!" To this goal, at various times surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism.
The movement in the mid-1920s was characterized by meetings in cafes where the Surrealists played collaborative drawing games and discussed the theories of Surrealism. The Surrealists developed techniques such as automatic drawing.
Surrealism as a political force developed unevenly around the world, in some places more emphasis was on artistic practices, in other places political and in other places still, Surrealist praxis looked to supersize both the arts and politics. During the 1930s the Surrealist idea spread from Europe to North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and throughout Asia. As both an artistic idea and as an ideology of political change.
Throughout the 1930s, Surrealism continued to become more visible to the public at large. A Surrealist group developed in Britain and, according to Breton, their 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition was a high water mark of the period and became the model for international exhibitions.

Dalí and Magritte created the most widely recognized images of the movement. Dalí joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935.
Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, in order to evoke empathy from the viewer.
World War II created havoc not only for the general population of Europe but especially for the European artists and writers that opposed Fascism, and Nazism. Many important artists fled to North America, and relative safety in the United States. The art community in New York City in particular was already grappling with Surrealist ideas and several artists like Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Roberto Matta, converged closely with the surrealist artists themselves, albeit with some suspicion and reservations. Ideas concerning the unconscious and dream imagery were quickly embraced.
There is no clear consensus about the end of Surrealism, or if there is an end, of the Surrealist movement. Some art historians suggest that WWII effectively disbanded the movement. However, art historian Sarane Alexandrian (1970) states, "the death of André Breton in 1966 marked the end of Surrealism as an organized movement." There have also been attempts to tie the obituary of the movement to the 1989 death of Salvador Dalí.
Surrealistic art remains enormously popular with museum patrons. The Guggenheim Museum in New York City held an exhibit, Two Private Eyes, in 1999, and in 2001 Tate Modern held an exhibition of Surrealist art that attracted over 170,000 visitors. In 2002 the Metropolitan Museum in New York City had a blockbuster show, Desire Unbound, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris had a show called La Révolution surréaliste.
More recently the BBC did a series on surrealism in May 2007. Some pictures and videos from the series can be seen at this link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/imagine/episode/surrealism.shtml

So is surrealism a revolutionary movement that can release us from oppressive rational thought? What do you think?

[Cruekid]

I must admit I know very little about surrealism other than some notable pieces of art, I do know a little about Dadaism which in someways is connected and also about situationists who like to think of themselves as surrealists . As for the art itself, I think it is aesthetically pleasing to look at and in answer to your question of 'a revolutionary movement', I would say yes somewhat due to the fact that surrealists as would situationists, sit around all day drinking coffee discussing a whole range of sujects such as politics and philosophy. Unfortunately, thats where the 'revolution' would end, as change can only come about by direct action, not art.

[Alec Morrison]

I think Surrealism attempted to combine the thoughts of Marx and Freud, two of the most influencial thinkers of the 20th century. Andre Breton was known as the dictator of Surrealism. Aragon was writing a novel, until Breton said that Surrealists shouldn't write novels. Aragon was also involved with the Communists and it was hard to follow (if not impossible) both the party and Breton. Breton made an anagram out of Salvador Dali's name: Avida Dollars. He thought Dali was only in it for the money. But Dali was a genius. Magritte was a Sunday painter. He described himself as a "thinker who paints." He would put up the easle in a space he made in his bedroom and paint. Yves Tanguy painted what he described as "inscapes," with beings populating a space which can only described as surreal. One thing about Surrealism though, it is based on the unconscious, so to say it is irrational is beside the point.

[Jill]

I heard that surrealist writings are pretty hard to follow because they were writing from the unconscious with little or no mind for ease of understanding on the part of the reader. I didn't know that Breton said surrealists shouldn't write novels though. That is quite restrictive practice.
No the point about surrealism and rationality is that it was supposed to free people from rational thought which keeps them in chains. That was supposed to be the revolutionary force in surrealism. I am not sure if rational thought can in itself be a form of oppression though.

[Alec Morrison]

I read somewhere that the English language is a form of oppression. I wouldn't go that far (especially because it's the only language I know well). But rational thought that says, "We can agree on this outlook on the world" (what ever it happens to be) and that this is "serious," can, I feel, be thought of as repressive. So, yeah, I can agree that basically rational thought is oppressive, but I think it is also neccessary for survival in some circumstances. As far as Breton as his aversion for novels, I guess the manifesto was the popular form of literature at the time. ?

[Jill]

Yes I guess the manifesto format was more common in those days.

I thought that the basis of theories about oppression is usually in the economics and revolutions only seem to have happened when the people are really badly off and starving. Like in the Russian and French revolutions. The gap between the very rich rulers and the very poor masses has to be huge before the people revolt and overthrow the status quo. But then Gramski who did a lot on workers coops in Italy said the basic exploitative economic order was backed up by a hegemony in which people grow up to believe and support systems that oppress them. So that everything we are taught and learn reinforces the established order.
So anything that challenges that scheme of things and dominant hegmony could be seen as revoltuionary but in the first place I don't really think a dreamworld of the unconscious expressed in art and writing is necessaruly any more liberating than other forms of creativity and secondly capitalism tends to buy up these ideas which may seem to threaten it and turn them into money spinners.So for example surrealism is used a lot in advertising images now.
By the way surrealism has apparently been critised by feminists who are not keen on the links with Frued and who say surrealism was a movement mainly dominated by men.
I am still not sure aout this rational thought thing though...

[Alec Morrison]

Yeah, Gramsci wrote a lot about how the Ford assembly line worked. And these days you get a lot of music from the '60s used to advertize the newest cars. Freud was certainly sexist by today's standards; have you ever read anything by Geoffrey Masson, I think his name is? He addressed some psychiatric survivors at Alternatives '88 in Salt Lake City. I gotta get going to math class.

[desik]

The main thing that links the theories of Freud and Marx is that they are unverfiable , that is, there is no way of proving they accurately describe objective reality , Marists and Freudians ( and of course the authors themselves ) simply assume and insist that they do because thats what the theories require, blind faith rather than evidence.

Is Surrealism a similar unverifiable belief system? a pompous term thought up by artists who felt that artistically riding on the back of ideas taken from Marx and Freud's work would lend it and anything it was attributed to a lofty systematised coherence and significance way beyond its visual impact and actual contribution to human knowledge and experience..

I'm also struggling to understand the difference between Disability and Outsider art. Can they be subsets of each other and if yes what exactly are their core differences?

[Alec Morrison]

Breton met Freud late in both their careers. I don't think it was a comfortable meeting; they probably misunderstood each other. Outsider art has probably been around longer that Disability art, because I think Disability is a newer concept. I've heard that it is hard to be recognized as an Outsider because you have to be discovered by someone.

[desik]

Alec, Your last point made me think , what about Stephen Wiltshire , .he was clearly discovered yet his art obviously derives from his disability . Here's a vid of Stephen at work.

[desik]

[Alec Morrison]

desik,

You're right and I'm wrong. Those artists are amazing. Have you ever seen any of the work of Chuck Close? He's physically disabled and paints "cells" in a picture that look totally abstract close up, but when you look at them from a distance they are portraits. How do you go about posting a YouTube video on this thing?

Alec

[Jill]

Hi Alex

In the ordinary comments on the pages you can just copy the code from you tube and then paste it in. That may also work on these discussions.I am not sure because I have not tried it yet but it probably is the same. Hope things are going well in Seattle. Do you know Irene from the old days by the way?
Bye for Now
Jill