100 years ago this day and this month: the birth of Surrealism (a few years longer if you count Apollinaire’s coinage of the term in 1917). Yvan Goll published an obscure Surrealist Manifesto on October 1, 1924; Andre Breton published his better known one, the one most of us think of, on October 15 of that same year. Because of course. What do avant-garde artists do but have sects, and splits, and breaks, and so forth? (Or used to do. It’s been my experience that the avant-garde died about 40 years ago. We just have a lot of mercenary hucksters and weekend slummers for the most part nowadays).
Surrealism grew out of Dada, and even earlier figures and movements. Influences included Alfred Jarry for example, as well as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, de Sade. Sorting out the differences between Dada and the Surreal can take some doing. Over time, I’ve gathered that Dada is more politically revolutionary in character, or at least more anarchistic, in the political sense. It is formative, sometimes destructive, nihilistic, violent. Seemingly senseless, but the boldness of its gestures and its rejection of bourgeois norms is that point. Whereas Surrealism is theoretically apolitical, or at least was initially. It is about seeking the liminal state, about expressing the energy of dreams. By its very nature though it has a relation to myth and the Collective Unconscious. Both arrive at something like nonsense and absurdity, but with different aims and forms. Later (pretty quickly actually) both got sucked into Marxism and other socialist philosophies between the wars. Breton expelled those who wouldn’t sign on for Communism — which frankly doesn’t sound very non-conformist to me. Breton supplemented the original manifesto with new ones in 1929 and 1942. Those associated with him included Antonin Artaud, Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel, Max Ernst, and Tristan Tzara. Georges Bataille was among those he cast out.
Curious about how this applies to usual themes of this blog? Check out my essay on the history (and taxonomy) of nonsense, or my piece on Dali’s screenplay for the Marx Brothers.
Also, keep an eye out for slips slips, the new literary magazine being started by my good friend Jeff Lewonczyk and his good friend Kristen Leigh. Maybe the avant-garde isn’t dead after all!