"Surrealism" in the USA (the curse of avida dollars)
barrett john erickson
that a couple were quite timely. written in 1996, it seemed appropriate to
post this today]
"Surrealism" in the USA
(the curse of avida dollars)
***
Most people in the USA are unaware of the comprehensive scope of Surrealist
activity, or that it continues today around the world. Instead, they think
of "Surrealism" largely as a European "art movement" which effectively ended
with the advent of WWII. But "art" -- especially visual art -- isn't a
necessary, or perhaps even a very important element, in the larger movement
which, in fact, had no visual expression at it's inception.
The pervasive misapprehension here is essentially the legacy of Dali (the
posturing showman dubbed "Avida Dollars" by Breton) having been the primary
popular introduction to and distortion of "Surrealism" in the USA (prior to
WWII). Painting was more accessible than text, especially the often
difficult text of Surrealists, so it isn't hard to understand how Dali's
stylistic work and extreme flamboyance became a defining symbol -- long
after he was no longer recognized as a Surrealist by Surrealists.
For example, according to Polizzotti's biography of Breton [The Revolution
of the Mind] Nadja was not available here in translation until 1960. Even
more significantly, the manifestoes weren't available here in translation
until 1969.
Meanwhile, during those same 60's, a very important cultural upheaval was
taking place in the world which certainly had relevance to Surrealism, and
saw it become the subject of some study, however limited the reference
materials were. But because its most important defining documents were not
generally available, the perception of "Surrealism" here remained very
limited and it's revolutionary significance deteriorated as it was
trivialized by mass media. Eventually "Surrealism" became synonymous with
the spectacle of Salvador Dali strolling onto the set of the Dick Cavett
show with a restless pet anteater on a leash.
[The significance of the anteater, as a colleague (Wm. Dubin) has pointed
out, is that it was the "totem" selected by André Breton, hence this was an
aggressive symbolic assertion by Dali that he was the master of Surrealism.]
***
Another of the legacies of Dali is the abrasive arrogance of Surrealist
Posers and Wannabees in this country.
Art school and casual reading seems to produce in those of shallow process
(who try to emulate surrealists rather than become one), a kind of
aggressively arrogant ignorance -- perhaps due to an inability to
distinguish dada from surrealism. This is most often expressed as a
personal attack on some other individual who has demonstrated an equal or
greater misunderstanding.
The problem, of course, is that those who are simply ignorant are often open
to dialog and explorations which can enlarge their understanding (and
further the surrealist project), while those whose ignorance is augmented by
aggressive arrogance are far too self-protective to allow for such growth.
Instead, they rationalize their behavior as a surrealist provocation, when
in fact it is quite counter-surrealist in its effect and motivation.
Surrealism for such people is merely a mask that permits role-playing
without responsibility.
Certainly, there are those who require frontal assault. Those are the
people whose deliberate purpose is to prevent the free exercise of the
imagination, or those who persist in misrepresenting surrealist intent to
counter-surrealist effect.
***
The problem is mostly one of myopic vision, limited understanding, and
deliberate misrepresentation. For too many, surrealist activity is
perceived as occurring within the segregated sphere of "art", hence a
"method" or "technique" or "genre". However, true surrealist activity forms
a more generalized process, which seeks an integrated poetic consciousness
in the active and unbounded pursuit of desire, wherever that leads.
"Art" may be a result of this pursuit, but not it's purpose, and cannot
contain it.
More importantly: the pursuit of desire -- the promised
"spiritual/psychological revolution" -- was diverted through appropriation
and surrendered by postmodernist collaborators to the forces of inertia.
For more than two decades (in the USA) we've been submerged in their
deceptively defeatist apathy, frozen in the aspic of their jellied
reactionary drivel.
Efforts to organize collective action are denounced and ridiculed.
Authentic individual creative action is declared impossible. The desire to
fight economic servitude is proclaimed naive.
But corrosive and toxic fluids are beginning to leak from self-inflicted
wounds, and in the foul smelling air of decomposing postmodern spectacle, a
new mutant strain of resistant life may yet evolve.
[end]
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of
the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and
future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be
perceived as contradictions."
...André Breton