douglain - Surrealism

From: avantpop Date: September 21st, 2004 05:17 am (UTC) (Link)

LJ isn't surreal?

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 05:22 am (UTC) (Link)

Why? And why must the revolution be specifically anti-capitalist? For me, surrealism is more about the style and the imagery than the message.

Though most people call anything the slightest bit weird surreal, which is a mis-use.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 07:15 am (UTC) (Link)

That's exactly what isn't true. Surrealism is not a style, and it is not contained in any particular iconography or set of images. Surrealism was a revolutionary art movement that was born out of the misery of the machine gun, out of the misery of World War I.

If you believe, as I do, that surrealism is still relevant and not merely titillating, then I think you have to take the position that the horrors of the last century, and of the present, put us in a situation much like the one Andre Breton found himself in after World War I. You have to believe that the so called rational order of society has been exposed as corrupt and useless.

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 11:13 am (UTC) (Link)

But that is not necessarily and exclusively anti-capitalist. I think you tend to see all art movements through the lens of your ideology. That's not a criticism, just an observation.

I understand where surrealism came from. But I don't see why it must carry a political message which you would confine to one single ideology in order to be viably surrealist.

I think that surrealism can come from a place of psychological revolution as well as socio-economic. Not to mention the fact that there are other corrupt societies which are not captialist.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:26 pm (UTC) (Link)

Obviously Surrealism is not an economic theory, but it is opposed to capitalism. To wonder if there might be a legitimate surrealism that isn't opposed to capitalism is the same as wondering if there is a legitimate Freudian theory that would deal with issues of sexuality.

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 05:30 pm (UTC) (Link)

You're still not answering my question--you're just telling me I'm a silly bint for asking it. ;)

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 05:33 pm (UTC) (Link)

So I call avoidance. If you're going to make a statement, defend it. What's you're argument? At this point, you seem to be saying: "Surrealism is anti-capitalist because it's anti-capitalist."

Shenanigans.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:51 pm (UTC) (Link)

Are you asking me to defend surrealism, to tell you why it should be anti-capitalist? Becauses I could do that, but that's not what I'm doing here. I'm just trying to make clear what surrealism is and what it is not. Surrealism is the attempt to put the subconscious in the service of the revolution, and the revolution is anti-capitalist (not only anti-capitalist, but always anti-capitalist).

We can debate whether it's good or bad, but that's what surrealism is.

Here are some useful links to real living surrealists:

http://www.zazie.at/Portland/00_WebPages/Index.htm

http://www.surrealistmovement-usa.org/

http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 05:54 pm (UTC) (Link)

That is what your opinion of surrealism is. But you have only made a statement, you have answered none of my questions directly, and you have not made an argument. Pointing links to people who are surrealists by your definition does not address my question either. Why can surrealism not mean putting the subconscious at the service of a non anti-capitalist revolution? What, exactly, are you saying?

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 06:04 pm (UTC) (Link)

Why can surrealism not mean putting the subconscious at the service of a non anti-capitalist revolution?

Well, for Jan Svankmajer it often meant attacking those who claimed to represent the revolution. In Prague any decent surrealist ended up being anti-soviet.

But the prevailing order is capitalist, and Svankmajer never stopped being anti-capitalist. There are some who would argue that surrealism ought to be anti-authoritarian, or that it is anti-authoritarian. I tend to agree.

But the fact is that Surrealism was Marxist in it's conception just as much as it was Freudian. Do abandon the Marxist component of surrealism is to abandon surrealism. It would be like saying "I like to control my art and don't believe in letting the unconcious influence what I create." Somebody who said that might be a great artist, but they would never be a surrealist. Similarly an artist who said, I don't care about politics but only care about the spiritual side of life, would also be abandoning surrealism.

Surrealism isn't static and it isn't simple, but it is always what it is. It is always about the dream. It is always about revolution.

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 06:08 pm (UTC) (Link)

So, basically, you're saying it means being against the prevailing order. But there are many prevailing orders--and the art itself need not address the revolution so long as the artist is committed to it (by this definition.) So, if I lived in a socialist country, my duty as a surrealist would be to be an anti-socialist. Nevertheless, you seem to be putting the ideology about the art here, and that disturbs me.

And of course the revolution is a moral consideration--you don't start one because you're bored, you start one because you feel the current system is morally--in the sense of objective right and wrong--wrong and corrupt.

And yet...and don't take this the wrong way, but the capitalist system seems to be acceptable for you in terms of getting your book out. Shouldn't you be printing them in your apartment, not taking advances from companies? ;)

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 06:20 pm (UTC) (Link)

First off, I'm just describing surrealism. I'm not saying you have to be a surrealist. Feel free to reject surrealism.

Now I'll try to give you the kinds of answers a surrealist would give.

If you lived according to your dreams in a truly socialist country your art would be your life.

Surrealism is not about art, it is about liberating the world so it is life can be lived as art. Surrealism is about the revolution. Art is dead. Art is a urinal I wear on my head.

As to starting a revolution because you're bored that's probably the most surrealist thing you could do.

http://www.notbored.com

Finally, if I printed the books in my apartment and sold them then I'd be a capitalist. Taking money from the publisher makes me a poor exploited worker. ;)

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 06:22 pm (UTC) (Link)

So you should barter them for chickens and barley and be an honest man.

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From: douglain Date: September 22nd, 2004 02:40 am (UTC) (Link)

That should have been

http://www.notbored.org

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 06:12 pm (UTC) (Link)

Would you accept (I am still not in agreement with your definition, as I feel it reflects a hegemony of rebellion which I am duty bound to revolt against) a differentiation between surreal and Surrealism? Of course, I rather think folk of the persuasion you're tlaing about would not want to be any kind of "ist." And when a movement reaches a point where it demands specific ideological assurances from its members, I think it has ceased to be entirely revolutionary, and become part of the system, the interplay of culture and subculture which maintains the status quo.

And what if I am a Marxist historian but not an economic Marxist? Am I still out of the club?

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 06:29 pm (UTC) (Link)

If you are a capitalist you're not a surrealist. This is the same as saying if you are a behaviorist your not a surrealist. Surrealism is Marxist and Freudian.

Now, on the question of what to do with specific artists I'm not sure. Dali was a capitalist. Should he have been expelled from the surrealist group? He was expelled, but was this the right thing to do? Interesting question. I don't know the answer.

But since I'm not surrealist and don't belong to any surrealist group it's not a problem I'll ever have to deal with.

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From: eris_devotee Date: September 21st, 2004 11:21 am (UTC) (Link)

That was surrealism as it applied a century ago. Today's young artistic minds have other concerns and what they find surreal might be beyond us. 9-11 happened to us... it changed our world... it IS their world.

Hopefully their concerns will reach beyond the failed 20th century attempts. Hopefully they've learned from what has gone before them that art which is merely a response has no original concepts of its own (perhaps the truth behind surrealism as a political art).

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From: dobrovolets Date: September 21st, 2004 01:35 pm (UTC) Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

What about those artists who were associated with the classical surrealist movement, who rejected Breton's prescribed version of engagement?

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:28 pm (UTC) Re: Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

I'm not sure who you're talking about. CLassical surrealists? You mean those who remained Dadaist?

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From: dobrovolets Date: September 21st, 2004 06:22 pm (UTC) Re: Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

I mean those conventionally associated with the movement in its initial heyday, the 1920s and 1930s.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 06:32 pm (UTC) Re: Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

Wouldn't that include Breton?

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From: dobrovolets Date: September 21st, 2004 07:51 pm (UTC) Re: Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

Yes, so now it's clear that you're misreading my initial question. Let me rephrase it in terms of set theory.

Set S = all those artists, writers and assorted malcontents who have ever been called, even by themselves, "surrealists."

Set C = the subset of S which includes those artists, writers and assorted malcontents from the 1920s and 1930s commonly associated with the Surrealist movement.

Set L = the subset of S which includes those artists, writers and assorted malcontents who fit the Lain axiom, mandating a revolutionary anti-capitalist commitment.

Set B = the intersection of C and L, of which Andre Breton is the exemplar. Investigation will probably find that B will also equal the set of all artists, writers and assorted malcontents who were both accepted by Breton as surrealists and never excommunicated by Breton.

This leaves Set D. D = the set of all members of C who are not members of B, and thus includes artists, writers and assorted malcontents who are commonly regarded as part of the classic surrealist generation, but also did nasty things like support Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Folks like Salvador Dalí.

Now, personally, I think Dalí was an overrated fraud, and look back with a bit of embarrassment at my own acid-addled fifteen-year-old self for having idolized him at one time. But it seems to me that to define him out of the surrealist movement ex cathedra and ex post facto is to eliminate much of the movement's historical ambiguity and equivocation.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 09:10 pm (UTC) Re: Playing Dalí's Advocate (Link)

My understanding is that those who originally counted themselves as surrealists were Marxists at the time. Later on they may have abandoned Marxism, but I'd say they abandoned surrealism at the same time.

I don't think I'm being as strict as Breton would be, either. I'm just talking about a general revolutionary commitment, not spelling out how that commitment should be acted on. For instance, I wouldn't have had any problem with Dali's painting of Lenin.

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From: scanner_darkly Date: September 21st, 2004 03:49 pm (UTC) (Link)

I agree with you up to this point:

I think surrealism has to come from a revolutionary/anti-capitalist perspective, or it isn't surrealism.

I, for one, think there are many people who say: "I think that (OBJECT I APPROVE) has to come from a (MOVEMENT I AGREE WITH), or it isn't (OBJECT I APPROVE)"

Andre Breton, the writer of the surrealist manifesto, defined Surrealism as such:

"Pure psychic automatism, by which an attempt is made to express, either verbally, in writing or in any other manner, the true functioning of thought. The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by reason, excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation."

(italics are mine, but let me reiterate: EXCLUDING ANY AESTHETIC OR MORAL PREOCCUPATION.)

If anything, Surrealism comes from a pure Freudian/Jungian psychological perspective, or it's not Surrealism. And I don't particularly like Freudianism, and have only a passing interest in Jungianism. But it is the the direct artistic expression of the bright new theories of a new field at the time.

Artists will always take the passionate ideas of the day and try to apply it in their art. They will often do it in unexpected ways, using it as the fertilizer for their artwork.

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From: yuki_onna Date: September 21st, 2004 05:32 pm (UTC) (Link)

What you said. Thumbs up on the italicized portion. Thumbs up on the capitalized portion. Just thumbs up.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:33 pm (UTC) (Link)

Since when did the revolution become an aesthetic or moral preoccupation?

You're right that surrealism was Freudian and wanted to tap the subconcious as a means of liberation.

People can do whatever they like when they create art. That doesn't mean that they are surrealists when they do it.

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From: scanner_darkly Date: September 21st, 2004 05:47 pm (UTC) (Link)

Since when did the revolution become an aesthetic or moral preoccupation?

My point, exactly.

People can do whatever they like when they create art. That doesn't mean that they are surrealists when they do it.

Mm. I agree. But surrealists can do whatever they like when they create art. That doesn't mean that they are revolutionary anti-capitalists when they do it.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:53 pm (UTC) (Link)

Surrealists can do whatever they like when they make art, but if they're not revolutionary anti-capitalists when they do it they aren't surrealists when they do it.

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From: scipug Date: September 21st, 2004 05:10 pm (UTC) False beginings... (Link)

Dearest Doug,

I agree with you about the roots of Surrealism. But I think you are missing the larger fact: Surrealism isn't just a style or an ideology in a vacuum. It existed in a time period.

You can believe and practice what the manifesto preaches. You can emulate the style or connect with the intention. But no one can be anything more than a re-surrealist. A post-Surrealist. A Surrealist-ist.

Surrealism cannot exist outside of it's timeframe any more than can Baroque, Impressionism, the Ashcan School, or Dada. They are movements set in time. Without the time they are just styles.

Yes, anyone can melt a clock, drop an apple in front of the face of a man wearing a bowler. But they aren't surrealists. The movement is dead. Long live the movement.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 05:30 pm (UTC) Re: False beginings... (Link)

Jan Svankmajer would disagree with you.

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From: scipug Date: September 21st, 2004 06:32 pm (UTC) Re: False beginings... (Link)

I forgot to mention the one exception to the rule. Prague. Anyone from Prague is exempt. Prague exits in a timeless void.

Everyone from Prague is a Surrealist.

There, I've proven my point.

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 06:44 pm (UTC) Re: False beginings... (Link)

You win.

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From: (Anonymous) Date: September 21st, 2004 10:54 pm (UTC) (Link)

Interesting discussion. I agree that much of what is called surrealism is not. I agree that surrealism should come from a revolutionary perspective. Breton said that the two tenets of Surrealism were Revolution and Magic, and that they were really the same thing, because "Magic implies protest, in other words revolt."

Like others, though, I'm not sure I agree that what is revolutionary is always anti-capitalist. In the context in which most of us here live in, it probably does, although there are plenty of other things to revolt against. (Although one could make the argument that a lot of the things I could list lead back to capitalism in the end.) Dali, for example, ended up revolting against the surrealists themselves. Revolution is a moving target; once capitalism has been buried, surrealists will be the ones standing by the jukebox like Brando in the Wild One, saying "What else you got?"

My two cents . . .

Dave Schwartz

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From: douglain Date: September 21st, 2004 11:01 pm (UTC) (Link)

Brando: You pimp! How dare you insult my boy? What are you anyhow? You're nothing, not even an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill. Pimp!


Doug: Marlon, I think he was mostly agreeing with me.


Marlon: Shut up, Lain. Mamatas was right about you. You're a fucking pansy. Why don't you stand up for yourself? Be a man, for Christ's sake.


Doug: I'm sorry, Dave.

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From: (Anonymous) Date: September 22nd, 2004 02:09 am (UTC) (Link)

Essay question, 5 points: Write a short paragraph discussing whether Brando's verbal assault upon the hapless Mr. Schwartz qualifies as surreal.

Marlon Brando's attack on Schwartz may indeed qualify as surreal. Assume that, as has been suggested, the two tenets of Surrealism are Revolution and Magic. The evident disdain expressed for "clerks" and the errand boy sent to collect the bill suggest an anti-capitalist bias, which in the context of Western society is inherently revolutionary. Similarly, the derogatory use of the word "pimp" expresses distaste for the buying and selling of ideas, which, although a fairly recent innovation, is a highly profitable branch of such economies, particularly in the United States. And since Brando is technically dead, the mere fact that he is speaking suggests a magical effect, a manifestation of other-world or dream logic. However, a final definition of Surrealism only truly existed in the mind of the founder and arbiter of the Surrealist movement, Andre Breton, and since he has been dead since 1966 we are unlikely to have a definitive ruling anytime soon.

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From: douglain Date: September 22nd, 2004 02:15 am (UTC) (Link)

FIVE POINTS TO MISTER SCHWARTZ!

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From: douglain Date: September 22nd, 2004 02:18 am (UTC) (Link)

Seriously though, given that Surrealism is a European revolutionary art movement that attempted to merge Freud and Marx I don't think I'm being too dogmatic to suggest that it is anti-capitalist. Under some other oppressive economic order another revolutionary art movement might spring up, but it wouldn't be surrealism...or if it was influenced by surrealism then it would be anti-capitalist if only latently so.

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From: (Anonymous) Date: October 27th, 2005 02:16 am (UTC) surrealism (Link)

Surrealism is about union of opposites forming a poetic marvelous.
The marvelous as the pleasure principle. A picture or a word that
causes pleasurable hallucinations . A hallucination that solves
problems. This is the surrealist 'toolbox'. Lets keep it as just a toolbox consisting of many tools. Everything else about it is just theory may it be collective or subjective. The revolution is a meme and a myth. Its what you want to believe in. aka subjazz

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