October 08, 2003
surrealism in Australia
I've just noticed. There is an exhibition on surrealism at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
It is fairly extensive with films and lectures on European surrealism.
I've missed the lot.
I only came across the exhibition today courtesy of the ever delightful and interesting DogfightAtBankstown.
The image on the left is Max Dupain, Surreal Face of a Woman, 1938
The educational material in the exhibition doesn't tell us all that much about the homegrown surrealist movement in Australia, or its significance. Art history rarely does. It's pretty much a mixture of biography, influence and formal analysis.
My understanding is that surrealism in Australia was understood to be a means of reuniting the conscious and unconscious realms of experience so that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world.
The surrealists understood the unconscious to be the wellspring of the imagination and poets and painters could tap into this normally untapped realm. Thus J. Gleeson, Composition, 1938, on the lower right
Gleeson became the most well-known of the Australian surrealist visual artists and he continued to explore the world of dreams.
Do we have a vindication of the role of the artist as a critic of society?
Though Gleeson expresses a faith in the subconscious processes of artistic production, it is not clear that this form of Australian surrealism ever broke away from the old idea of aestheticism (art for its own sake), or art being primarily about beauty.
J Gleeson, Evening Ceremonies, 1986
Was there a critical edge to surrealism as a modernist avant garde movenment in Australia?
Or was it about finding the forms to express a new romantic national mythology?
Did it have anything to say that was otherwise to the Enlightenment rationality that had decayed into development, economic growth and raising standards of living in the new suburbs?
Does it say anything about the monstrous horrors of modern civilization? Were there monstrous horrors in the establishment of a liberal civilization on the Australian continent?
Did the moment of surrealism help us to understand our history?
If there was a critical edge then it was due to the effect of the crisis of the Depression and the barbarism of World War II:
Victory Girls by Albert Tucker is part of the series called Images of Modern Evil.
It is an expression of shock and moral outrage at the decay or collapse of [Christian?] moral codes in wartime Melbourne. It sounds as if there was a rebellion against the repressive puritan moral code of the 1930s and the privations of the war (a decade of bleak times) in the name of individual freedom.
Tucker's images of evil series expressed his outrage and disgust at the living for the moment and women selling sexual favours for silk stockings, chocolates and money during WW2. The life of "the mass" in a modern city is reduced the underside of the city--criminals, prostitutes, clowns and psychotics. This urban life in the wartime city of Melbourne becomes an allegory of evil.
However, surrealism never really caught on amongst the visual arts in Australia. The art history books tell us that it was primarily continued by James Gleeson, who continued painting until the 1980s.
So this work by T. Gengenbach,The First Days of Spring at the Strait of Hormusz, (1980)
comes as a suprise. It indicates that surrealism was, and has been, far more widespread and deeper than the Australian art history books have told us.
The history of surrealism in Australia yet to be written. It did not die out in the 1940s, squeezed by social realism and abstract expressionism. It continued on as part of the underground.
The art history books, (eg., Bernard Smith's Australian Painting) rarely make a connection is ever made to European surrealism other than the obligatory reference to Salvador Dali. Art lives in a self-enclosed world of its own.
So why is there no mention made of Andre Breton? Or Georges Bataille? Did the writings of these European thinkers resonate in Australia? If so in what way?
Did the conflicts and fallout between them have an impact in Australia? Did we have two kinds of surrealism in Australia? One about beauty and one about filth?
I do not know the answers to these questions. I wish I did. It seems as if we need to recover a history that has been lost.
What I do know is that the art history books are silent. Smith's academic/scholarly tome does not even mention Breton or Bataille in the index.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at October 8, 2003 07:31 PM | TrackBackwow man, u r great.
Posted by: timur on February 28, 2004 03:39 AMhey, im a big fan of salvador dali. he does stuff like that.
Posted by: timur on February 28, 2004 03:41 AMyeah, hes kinda creepy 2.
Posted by: on March 9, 2004 04:18 AMThis is like so awsome like its so like cool like yeah and stuff...hahahahahaha.....i dont really talk like that im actually kinda intellegent...........any way.......love the art.
Posted by: Samantha on March 23, 2004 04:26 AMheelllo
i personaly think these drawings are not that good.
quiet boring actually.
you guys sound dumb. I think these poems really speak to the wondering mind. they seem to symbolize life to day and is treacherys and disappointments. i like them they really speek to the depths of the darkness of my mind.
:)intelectually stimulating
I agree with sarah, they are about communication of subconscious thought, the emotions the images stir, they leave us searching for comfort but a sinister image acompanies every visually pleasing image, life against death, blood on the egg. love against emptiness beautiful eyes morphing to inanimate object, images prompting us to question things we feel comfortable about, hence disturbing
Posted by: Joe on April 8, 2004 05:26 PMI have two disappointments with Australian surrealism.
First, this body of surrealist work is that it does not delve into the monsters in our unconcious: eg., the fears of Asians swamping Australia; the horror about communists, the fears and anxieties about aborigines in a white unconscious;the dread of the bush/desert and bush fires.
Secondly, most of the surrealist images I have seen go mythical: they are about ancient European and Greek myths that have little to do with Australia.
I guess they were introduced so that Australian artists would avoid being seen as provincal by English critics. They so desperately wanted to speak universally---for all mankind? To elevate an Australian themes to a universal level and step beyond the "narrow" horizons of a region or nation.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on April 9, 2004 02:44 PMI like those paintings. Almost all of them are dark and gloomy. How did you do that?
Can I have one for free? I'm serious.
Rurrealism is done for, face it. It was all revolutional back in the good ol' days (1924), but now it's just kitsch.
Posted by: on April 28, 2004 07:21 AMi think you people are not seeing the real point of dali's work.
Posted by: jason on April 30, 2004 02:42 PMWhat is the real point of Dali's work?
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on April 30, 2004 04:34 PMjames gleeson is australias most important surrealist artist. without him surrealism wouldnt of survived in australia. he's fantastic and we all should be so lucky to be as gifted as him.
Posted by: belinda on May 2, 2004 11:47 AMlike dali if you will but i as soon poke my eyes out with a hot iron than choose dali over gleeson
Posted by: belinda on May 2, 2004 11:49 AMI cant find a picture of "Massive journey of a personality. 1938. If anyone can help, please email me. melsiebree@yahoo.com
he reminds me of Salvador Dali
Posted by: on May 21, 2004 10:49 PMI am just an art student so discard my comment if you want to but isn't the point of the comparison between Dali and Gleeson the fact that Gleeson was heavily influenced by Dali?
I do feel that Gleeson was the more inspiring artist yet if Dali had been able to work beside Gleeson I think that some fantastic work would have been produced by both of them.
Posted by: Jason White on June 14, 2004 01:24 PMI AM THE CHEESE!!!!!!!!
P.s. dali is king.
p.s.s. dont take the purple pills.i did.there not that great.really.
Posted by: java plasen on June 23, 2004 03:50 PMI am a student at St. Augustine's High School in Redditch, England. We have recently been studying surrealsim as part of a unit of work for our GCSE coursework. Before surrealism was introduced to me, less than a few months ago, i didnt know what it was or anything about it, and since then i've become really interested in this type of Art! i enjoyed looking at the sample of surrealism paintings you have on display and look forward to viewing more in the near future! yours sincerly,
Natalie Mahon
Pupil at
St. Augustines High
School
REDDITCH
aurreal art is amazing i really love it. im 14 and like art enough to have a job in it and would love to do surrealism.
Posted by: lauren squires on July 13, 2004 07:05 PMi am currently studying James Gleeson at school, and as an artist personally,i dont like he's paintings. I find his works quite disturbing. But for Gleeson to be able to evoke such feelings through an artwork, he is obviously quite clever.
Posted by: Gemma Armour on August 19, 2004 04:47 PMright, first off, who the fuck was that girl up there saying she loved these poems?...??? wtf?
secondly: living in canberra, with the national gallery of australia, iv seen alot of tuckers stuff, and i really think that his 'victory girls' is DEFINETELY not the best example, but the only one to be found widely spread on the internet. After much searching i could not find a single 'images of modern evil' painting and had to resort to postcards from the gallery:P in such a way is tucker often misrepresented, that painting was obviously never finished (see left hand, etc) and is not nearly as good an example of his surrealist work as some of his other paintings, most prominently the modern evils series. Sooooooo before you throw him away as a surrealist please PLEASE track down the other paintings, look at them, replace this one, instead of just settling with it because of its fame, trust me, he has far better work:P
Posted by: aimee on October 20, 2004 09:46 AMOMG!!!!! i put three hours into my comment and u dont even fuckin post that onto the web site i am upset, cut and emotionally hurt physicallyand mentally
Posted by: annette townley on April 18, 2005 11:22 AMi think these artworks are very interesting...its a matter of looking into the artworks, not a matter of looking at it and sya wow there is a line going from one side to eh other..cause if you look deeper you might realise the line is actually more than you think...everything is meaningful...
Posted by: Irene on May 25, 2005 09:25 PMA poet is a naked man - Bob Dylan
Posted by: corey on June 15, 2005 09:25 PM