Surrealism and Marxism
Mar 2 2006 22:54
Andrew J. Webber wrote:
Surrealism embraces a Marxist ideology that demands an orthodox approach to history as a product of the material interaction of collective interests; but it also embraces the more personalised ideology of psychoanalysis with its prioritising of the case history over writ large.
I know of the historic manifestations of the link between the two, from Surrealism's incorporation into the Third International to Breton writing manifestos with Trotsky, but I don't understand how they're ideologically entwined. The only similarity I can see between the two is that they both were part of the modernist era questioning of previous societal values and assumptions.
And can someone explain that quote?? Cheers.
Mar 2 2006 23:00
#2
I thought it was because both surrealism and marxism have some good ideas which are generally misunderstood and misappropriated by people trying to look cool.
Still, I'd be interested to learn more, a friend of mine had a major hardon for Breton and I read some stuff by him, but it was in french so I forgot it 
Mar 3 2006 11:59
#3
Hmmm...what Revol says sounds pretty probable, but it still leaves the link as somewhat tenuous. I'm told that the origins of the two's reconciliation can be found in their common admiration for Freud, which again, would need substantiating for me.
There's surprisingly little about this online. Seems noone ever bothered to really question their allegiance. Maybe Marxism was just trendy and slightly shocking to the "establishment" then in the way that celebrity Respect/anti-Bush posturing is today.
Mar 3 2006 12:13
#4
:> 1919-1950: The politics of Surrealism
That might have some useful info...
Mar 3 2006 15:08
#5
Vaneigem's 'Cavalier History of Surrealism' might be worth a shot, too. Gives (what seems to me to be) a decent historical account of the surrealists with some focus on what Vaneigem sees as their (Breton's) misguided flirtations with ortho-Marxism. It's good on the tension between what Vaneigem views as 'core' or historical/theoretical surrealism and orthodox ideology.
I've never found it on the net but it'll definitely be in your uni's library.
Mar 4 2006 11:07
#6
Andre Breton's 1935 interview with Indice, a socialist journal published in the Canary Islands, is a succinct statement of the principal theoretical influences on surrealism
"We have long asserted our adherence to dialectical materialism, of which we embrace all the theses primacy of matter over thought; adoption of the Hegelian dialectic as the science of the general laws of movement of the external world as well as of human thought; the materialist conception of history ('All social and political relations, all religious and legal systems, all theoretical conceptions which appear in history, can be explained only by conditions of material existence of the epoch in question'); necessity of social revolution as the resolution of the antagonism which arises, at a certain stage of their development, between the material productive forces of society and the relations of existing production (class struggle).
"Of contemporary psychology, surrealism retains that which tends to give a scientific basis to research into the origin and mutation of ideological images. In this sense it has attached a particular importance to Freud's investigations into the processes of dreaming and, more generally, to all of Freud's work which is the clinically based exploration of unconscious life."
Politically, Breton was close to Trotsky and the left opposition when this was still a proletarian current; as a result he also shared many of its principal weaknesses, particularly a strong support for national liberation struggles, which he tended (wrongly in my view) to conflate with surrealism’s admiration for the culture of the pre-capitalist, and above all the tribal societies. To my knowledge, Franklin Rosemont’s book Andre Breton and the First Principles of Surrealism provides the best introduction to Breton’s political outlook, although it has to be read critically because Rosemont tends to identify completely with Breton’s ideas.
The surrealist poet Benjamin Peret, however, broke with Trotskyism over its support for the USSR and its betrayal of internationalism during the second world war. Together with Grandizo Munis he worked on texts like Unions against the Revolution and For a Second Communist Manifesto, which were essentially on the positions of the communist left.
Mar 4 2006 18:12
#7
John. wrote:
:> 1919-1950: The politics of SurrealismThat might have some useful info...
Quote:
In January 1927 5 members of the Surrealist group joined the Communist Party: Breton, Aragon, Eluard, Unik and Peret. Others, like Desnos and Miro refused to join.
Just for the record, Miro never joined the Surrealists, but was in the same circle and the two held mutual respect for each other.
That's an interesting article but unfortunately the remit of my essay is only in relation to Spanish-speaking artists. I was basically looking for stuff on Dali and Miro...although I guess I could work in the manifesto Breton, Trotsky and Rivera wrote.
Mar 11 2006 13:54
#8
Alan_is_Fucking_Dead wrote:
I was basically looking for stuff on Dali and Miro...although I guess I could work in the manifesto Breton, Trotsky and Rivera wrote.
Dali as far as I know was no Marxist, in fact he could be considered the father of modern commercialism in the art world, he certainly he had a canny knack for making money and self-publicising.
Personally, for what its worth, I think Dali's stuff is more psychedelic and allegorical, at times verging on op art, than surrealist.
Are you familiar with the (marxist) CoBrA school?
http://www.thecobramovement.com/then.html
I reckon their work is not a million miles from the surrealists - its also about stripping back the layers of the psyche.
(my favourite from the CObra Camp: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=16592&searchid=8503&tabview=image )
Mar 11 2006 20:14
#9
Didnt some of the COBRA people on to be the arty side of the Situs?
Mar 12 2006 16:54
#10
new book out called Creating Anarchy, by ron sakolsky, talks about the history of anarchists/anti-staters (including sits) and surrealism, but doesn't say much about the spaniards...
Mar 12 2006 18:13
#11
Hi,
For me, the problem of surrealism lies in the way its established ‘technique’ relates to its end ‘products’ , just as it does in marxist and psychoanalytic orthodoxy.
The surrealist method tends to normalise outcomes. After a few years of producing a more or less standardised ‘convulsive beauty’ the surreal world became a little bit dull... and reflected a rebelliousness derived from a very restricted class/gender/ethnic background.
The practice became banal because what was first defined as ‘surreal’, the coast of a whole new world, turned out only to be an inversion of bourgeois values, like satanism to christianity.
In a similar way both psychoanalysis and marxism depend on the circular self-affirmation of their worldview rather than proposing actual open and universally applicable systems – both get back as results what they put in as theory.
And as with marxism/psychoanalysis, the most interesting surrealists were its discontents, Artaud, Bataille, cobra, the situationists and so on.
On the other hand, I find that I get on best with those radicals who have a place for the surreal in their politics. Without surrealism radicals tend to become overly puritan/utilitarian.
pil
i always took the link as a rejection of the dull tedious utilitarianism of capitalism, surrealism seeks to tear spaces in the canvas to make us stand back and question the REAL.
not an expert though.