Old living surrealist tells all

[Marcus Williamson]

Just in case anyone hasn't seen this yet. Here's an excellent article
about Dorothea Tanning, the oldest (now 92) of the original
surrealists:

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/02/11/tanning/

[Kwigd144]

She even says the Movement died in the 50's! I do strongly disagree with that
since Andre Breton and Jose Pierre carried on. However, today, with the likes
of you, we have little hope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[barrett john erickson]

"Marcus Williamson" <mar...@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:lsc1quc1an79uj1io...@4ax.com...

this is what i wrote the last time this link was posted:

>>>>>>> 9march02 >>>>>>>

i have no personal knowledge about how Tanning views surrealism today.

and i know nothing about John Glassie. however, having read his article
when the link was first posted, i don't trust him to have sufficiently
probed, or even accurately recorded Tanning's views.

so i'll limit my comments:

if Tanning means to say that she doesn't feel trapped by her past and
prefers to define herself by what she is doing today, i applaud. this is a
posture fully compatible with surrealism.

if, by the 60's, she felt her work was no longer part of an on-going
"surrealist effort", i certainly won't argue that she has no right to
distance herself from that effort.

if she means to say that _movement_ was not a significant characteristic of
surrealists in the 50's and perhaps even into the early 60's, i'd strongly
agree. the Situationist International (which of course had surrealist
roots) was doing what surrealists should have been doing during those years.
i'd even say that the dynamics of an actual "movement" still seems a rare
thing among surrealists today.

but if she actually meant to say that the surrealist movement is dead, i'd
simply point out that surrealism wasn't a star vehicle for founding
surrealists, it is a project with a history of actions and texts that define
it fairly well. surrealism can only be defined as the aggregate of
surrealist activity and the focus of that activity -- the surrealist
project -- can be taken up by anyone who recognizes the marvelous potential
of everyday living in contrast to its current poverty. no one's
proclamation of death, alone or in unison with Jean Schuster, Jose Pierre,
Edouard Jaguer, or whoever else was involved in planning the '69 wake, makes
it so. regardless of their second generation "credentials".

even Breton, didn't have the authority to declare surrealism dead as long as
there were active surrealists.

but Schuster and company were certainly justified in disbanding _their_
group in '69 -- they had no energy left just when they should have been most
active.

Polzotti quotes Caude Courtot: "The events of May 1968, which one could see
as Surrealism in the streets, by the same token meant that it no longer
remained within the confines of the group. We were almost ejected from it.
We felt we had been overtaken."

it was an astounding arrogance -- and a betrayal of the project -- for them
to proclaim surrealism finished just because they were.

but a handful of tired people in Paris couldn't kill the Czech group, or
deny that new groups were forming in the USA and elsewhere even as they
issued their death certificate and turned their attention to taxidermy.

and even in Paris, new surrealist groups quickly formed.

the simple fact that a new and very active group emerged in Portland (OR)
just last year is sufficient evidence that such a proclamation of
surrealism's death remains false today.

<<<<<<<<< end repost <<<<<<<<<<<

-- barrett

BLUE FEATHERS se2 (The New World Odor) is now available
(BF#4 will be available in July02)
http://www.MagneticFields.org/blue/

bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/

surrealists in minnesota
Sur...@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

==============================================

[Dale Houstman]

Barrett, let me beat Wiggy to the punch:

SURREALISM IS A NOODLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MACHINE SPAGHETTI
RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!FUCK YOU BARRETT AND I HATE DALE!!!!!BRETON'S A ROLL
OF VIVA...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kwigd144]

Such a Shame that you have to mock Barrett. Dale, Thank you for sending me that
E-mail before, I understand and I accept your apology, yes let's move forward.
Again, I accept your apology.

[Dale Houstman]

You're not fooling anyone with this.

If I DID send you mail it would have a bomb in it.

dmh

[Kwigd144]

Now All of a sudden you turn on me, after you apologized, THEN A THREAT! I HAVE
TO REPORT YOU TO THE AUTHORITIES! THAT IS AN ONLINE THREAT!