Curious visions 5: Surrealism II .

1. Curious visions 5: Surrealism II. Women in Surrealist practice. The ideas behind Surrealism involved liberty and a doing away with middle-class values, restraints and rationalism. Also, Surrealists generally celebrated sexuality (mostly hetero though.) This would theoretically mean that women were accepted fully, rather than as marginalised people. However they were of a time and place where women’s roles were only recently being questioned and challenged. Women were more often seen as muses; or supports or inspirations to the main game – that is, male artistic production. <<Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997), Sans Titre, (untitled), 1934,Photograph. >>

2. Leonora Carrington ( UK, 1917-2011) was a British Surrealist. Like other Surrealists, she sought to access the unconscious and her work was puzzling and mysterious. She was interested in Nature, magic, alchemy, and the Goddess. Her work contains many symbols that the average viewer would never understand. How could we go about describing this work in the structural frame? Leonora Carrington (UK 1917-2011), Portrait of the late Mrs Partridge, 1947, details unknown.

3. Note the use of space within this image. How could we describe it? Remember the images of De Chirico we saw last session. This is a recurring aspect of Surrealist practice. Leonora Carrington ( UK, 1917-2011) Birdbath, 1974, screenprint, 88 x 69cm The disquieting muses, oil on canvas 107 x 76cm, originally 1914, self forgery 1947

4. Meret Oppenheim (Swiss, 1913-1985) Object,(Lunch in fur), 1936, teacup, saucer and spoon covered with gazelle hide. Women artists were in fact more a part of the Surrealist movement than in any other Modernist movement. Their presence and work eventually had an impact. They were not simply the lovers, partners or companions of the men. However, women were only allowed to show in Surrealist exhibitions from 1933 onwards. This image is another example of theSurrealist Object. A ‘readymade’ object – the cup and saucer - is transformed into something symbolising the Wild; Nature; and the erotic. What might a cup and saucer normally symbolise for us?

5. Here Oppenheim is representing the human form in a distorted, partially abstract kind of way. These forms are referred to as biomorphic. This type of distortion would go on to influence other artists. Note that the actual figure, though distorted and puzzling, is illusionistic….what about the ground though? How are we to read this image? Oppenheim, Red head, blue body, oil on canvas, 1936, 80 x 80cm

6. Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989) Dali, The accommodation of desire, 1929, oil and collage on cardboard, 22 x 34cm. The Surrealists as a group were interested in accessing an inner reality. They were also politically motivated as a group. They regarded themselves as revolutionaries…they didn’t want to fight with weapons of war, but they did want to overthrow the current way society was running…a way that was supposedly rational and proper. They were interested in liberty of all kinds, including sexual liberty. Salvador Dali became notorious as a semi-madman; semi-genius. Many of his images are well known to us. Part of the reason for that is that he was a great self-promoter and a truly eccentric character,which the media (growing in influence during this period) loved.

7. Dali was very interested in Sigmund Freud’sideas about dreams and the unconscious, and used symbols mentioned in Freud’s writings. (To Freud, symbols of various kinds often – usually- end up symbolising the phallus, or envy of the phallus, or fear of castration, or sexual desire of some kind.) Dali played with images which read ambiguously or morphed. He used what he called the ‘paranoic-critical’ method to arrive at images. This means staring at something fixedly…and eventually allowing yourself to see something else in it. It is another way of connecting to the unconscious. Dali, Soft self-portrait with bacon, 1941, oil on canvas, 61 x 51cm

8. The persistence of memory, 1931,oilon canvas, 24 x 33 cm Video clip from the Dali Museum. Watch these two annoying kids, and keep your eyes open for the following terms about Surrealist works,and Dali’s in particular: Reversal of the Laws of Nature; Juxtaposition; Transformation; Dislocation; Metamorphosis; Symbolism; Double –image paintings

9. This is another example of the Surrealist Object, mentioned last session. It was a new form of art-making. It comprises two ready-made (already existing in themselves), totally unrelated objects…or perhaps, if we reflect, we could see some relation? Or…not? Why do you think the Surrealists may have been attracted to this art technique? Dali collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on The design for a dream sequence in the Film Spellbound in 1945. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzxlbgPkxHE&list=PL2D885F5ED630353D&index=23&feature=plpp_video Salvador Dali, Lobster telephone, painted plaster and working telephone, 1936