Monday was a magical day, incredible but true !
As I arrived at 8.00am at work, I asked my colleague Gladys what she had been doing this week end. She explains that she went to the Surrealists' exhibition with Yuko, one of the Japanese translators ...
I pinch myself ... in .. B R I S B A N E?
Yes, as a matter of fact, next door, since the Gallery of contemporary arts is 10ms walk from my office.
So, listen ... I went there for lunch time ! I did !
This is my walk from my side of the river (North) to the Arts Gallery (South), and here is our beautiful bridge, very surrealist itself.
All I had to do was cross that bridge and I started my surreal voyage
GOMA - Arts Gallery
And here was the message flashing at me
I dreamed I was alive. That surprised me. I was alive. But I woke myself up.
Here is the Definition of Surrealism by André Breton, The Manifesto of Surrealism:
"Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express, verbally by means of the written word, or any other manner, the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern."
Breton argues that "one could use the powers of the subconscious in the reinventation of the real, in order to get through reality's arrogant appearance of trying to be what it is not".
In an attempt to "liberate desire to give reality its sovereign freedom" (I am not telling who said that, it would put you off the idea), because without this inner freedom, there is no Art (what I understood).
Do not take your children there (even if there is a kids workshop), do not even take your partner (you won't like the messages on the wall about abandoning them, as a starter), just try to immerse yourself, and let your mind be blown out.
Don't even try to understand, it is a deconstruction experience, objects and painting do not have any aesthetic power there, it is just the way you think about every thing and every common object that is being challenged, the reinvention of the real.
Original sample works you could come in contact with at the exhibition:
La Femme couchée de Picasso
Silence, J. Miro
Painted after the 68' revolution in France, 'it conveys the momentous effort of orchestration required to maintain an act of collective silence'. Note 'letters and numbers invading the pictorial field' (surrealist feature) 'to change or create meaning'.
Here the word 'silence' floats and move as part of the choreography.
This last one I chose : I did not like it at first, at all ! But it grew on me, and now it is my favourite. This is why: the surrealist movement was born out of the horrific experiences from men on the battlefields of modern warfare. 'During a long night spent alone and seriously injured at the bottom of a shell crater, Masson witnessed the fusion of the muddy earth with the blood and shattered limbs of the dead'. This painting has bits of sand mixed with pigment, and is an attempt to 'automation' (not thinking rationally' (not sure it is possible, but still nice to attempt).
It says: 'this painting crystallises the ultimate transformation between life and death'.
Anatomy is fused with landscape.
Earth/Woman - interior/exterior - tender/violent - unified/disembodied
This is what he saw !
I cannot say I enjoy surrealism, it is not even beautiful, but it definitely shakes ones foundations, and this I like. It is also a big turn in the 20th century artistic movements.
Artists could not 'make beautiful pictures' anymore, since everyone could get hold of a camera, making even more beautiful pictures, they had to tell another story.
Context :
A cataclysm, an horrific war was the trigger for change or an attempt to reach the bottom layers of how we comprehend in the surface, for some people anyway.
You may not agree, it is ok, I just shared my day :)
