Surrealism comes and goes through the threads of junk for code. I don't see it as an art historical movement of the 1930-40s that died out because it had reached a dead end, was rejected by conservatives and replaced by abstraction and abstraction expressionism.
I see it as a part of our culture and so in informing the way we write about our culture.
An example would be the Lester Bangs approach to rock journalism. This rock aesthetic celebrates the momentary anarchistic explosion of rock expression, sees the stream of consciousness as revolutionary and connects it with gore outrage and death as a way to cope with the gnawing void of our nihilistic present.
Surrealism: Desire Unbound by Jennifer Mundy, is the text, of an exhibition that questions the way we understand surrealism according to this review by Peter Mauro.
Mauro says that:
'...a static essentializing conception of the term "desire" has traditionally been a stumbling block in most scholarly work on the movement. Even in many of the revisionist studies of the 1980’s and 1990’s, influenced by Anglo-French feminist and deconstructivist philosophies, the role of "desire" in Surrealism was generally assumed to be one of phallocentric glorification and the subjugation of women. Often, the revolutionary role that desire played in the early years of the movement in terms of the contestation of sexuality, power, and bourgeois socio-economic norms has often been de-emphasized, while its supposed gender-exclusivity has been heavily critiqued under the auspices of the "male gaze" and "misogyny."'
'...often assumed an almost relentless one-sided negativity. This tended to foster a disregard for the truly radical projects of the group, the fiercely independent activities of many of the women associated with Surrealism, and Surrealism’s potential use value as a critical methodology for analyzing late twentieth century media culture. In short, the movement and its philosophies regarding gender, sexuality, pornography, desire, and other key concepts were often reduced to a few simplified and negatively toned Freudian buzz words such as "fetish," "obsession," and "repression."'
"Cox establishes the centrality of the writings of several ancillary figures such as de Sade, Heine, and Bataille for Bretonian Surrealism. Cox posits Sadean sexuality, with its emphasis on non-reproductive and non-monogamous sexual activities, as a cornerstone for the Surrealist notion of "love." He argues that rather than simply being a cover for the sexual exploitation of women, Surrealist "love," in contrast to bourgeois "love," in fact promoted a critical linkage between acts of love, atheism, and revolutionary morality. Therefore, love ceases to be simply a vehicle by which to subjugate women and takes on a political potential by being in opposition to bourgeois conceptions of morality and desire."I think this is on the right track, though I would distinquish Bataille's understanding of surrrealism from Breton's conception of, surrealism. There is conflict and disgreement here, not harmony. Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at November 14, 2004 01:08 PM | TrackBack