Surrealism

Surrealism has been an important movement to take inspiration from as the ideas expressed by its founders and participants reflect directly to the work I am currently developing. 

Having already stated the influence of the Dadaists, with their somewhat anti-establishment aesthetic, both visually and theoretically the Surrealists are no less controversial and appropriate with their ideals.

What is of particular interest to me are the Manifestos that were released proclaiming the Surrealist movement to be a movement of the mind whereby the art created becomes a tool to aid the conception. Their use of theory, philosophy and literature is very important to the textual element of my work.

Below is part of André Breton’s first Surrealist Manifesto issued in 1924 describing the movement as a “Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations”

The idea that you create works that are exempt from such concerns interests me greatly. Is it possible to truly be parted from social and moral constraints or by doing this, is there an over forced confidence to the work, or honest naivety?

Nowadays can you really produce work that has “the absence of all control” well this is what I am trying to provoke through my current Photomontage series.

André Breton Quote taken from, Patrick Waldberg, Surrealism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), pp. 66-75.