Journal of Surrealism and the Americas (JSA)
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas focuses on the subject of modern European and American intellectuals’ obsession with the “New World.” This obsession—the very heart of Surrealism—extended not only to North American sites, but also to Latin America, the Caribbean, and to the numerous indigenous cultures located there. The journal invites essays that examine aspects of the actual and fantasized travel of these European and American intellectuals throughout the Americas, and their creative response to indigenous art and culture, including their anthropological and collecting activities, and their interpretations of the various geographic, political, and cultural landscapes of the Americas. We furthermore intend to investigate the interventions / negotiations / repudiations of European/American or other Surrealisms, by indigenous as well as other artists, writers and filmmakers. Original publication is available at: Journal of Surrealism and the Americas
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- Creators: Castañeda, Luis M.
- Creators: Schieder, Martin
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2009) - Table of Contents
“Surrealism and Post-Colonial Latin America: Introduction” by Susanne Baackmann and David Craven, p. i-xvii.
“‘My Painting is an Act of Decolonization': An Interview with Wifredo Lam by Gerardo Mosquera (1980)” translation by Colleen Kattau and David Craven, p. 1-8.
“Surrealism and National Identity in Mexico: Changing Perceptions, 1940-1968” by Luis M.
Castañeda, p. 9-29.
“Negotiating Surrealism: Carlos Mérida, Mexican Art and the Avant-garde” by Courtney Gilbert, p. 30-50.
“1925 – Montevideo in the Orient: Lautréamont’s Ascent Among the Paris Surrealists” by Gabriel Götz Montua, p. 51-83.
“Paranoia and Hope: The Art of Juan Batlle Planas and its Relationship to the Argentine Technological Imagination of the 1930s and 1940s” by Michael Wellen, p. 84-106.
“Siqueiros and Surrealism?” by Irene Herner, p. 107-127.
“Review of 'Richard Spiteri, Exégèse de Dernier malheur dernière chance de Benjamin Péret'” by John Westbrook, p. 128-131.
“Review of ‘Liliana Porter: Línea de Tiempo’ (Line of Time)” by Arden Decker-Parks, p. 132-134.
“Review of ‘Zurcidos Invisibles: Alan Glass, Construcciones y Pinturas, 1950-2008’” by Susan Aberth, p. 135-138.
“Review of ‘David Hopkins, Dada’s Boys: Masculinity After Duchamp’” by Julian Jason Haladyn, p. 139-140.
“Review of ‘Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire’” by Ryan Johnston, p. 141-147.
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 8 No. 1 (2014) - Table of Contents
“Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Surrealism and Documentary Photography” by Ian Walker, p. 1-27.
“(Sur)real or Unreal?: Antonin Artaud in the Sierra Tarahumara of Mexico” by Lars Krutak, p. 28-50.
“Surrealist Views, American Landscapes: Notes on Wolfgang Paalen’s Ruin Gazing” by Kent L. Dickson, p. 51-73.
“‘Don’t Forget I Come From the Tropics’: Reconsidering the Surrealist Sculpture of Maria Martins” by Michael R. Taylor, p. 74-89.
“‘Le centre du milieu’: Matta and the Exploding Dome” by Denise Birkhofer, p. 90-104.
“Edward James and Plutarco Gastélum in Xilita: Critical Paranoia in the Mexican Jungle” by Irene Herner, p. 105-123.
“Review of Ellen Landau, ‘Mexico and American Modernism’” by Luis M. Castañeda, p. 124-126.
“‘Surrealist Ghosts and Spectrality in Surrealist Ghostliness’ by Katharine Conley” by Martine Antle, p. 127-129.
“Review of Roger Rothman, ‘Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small’” by Jonathan S. Wallis, p. 130-135.
“Review of ‘Late Surrealism’: The Menil Collection, May 24- August 25, 2013” by Rachel Hooper, p. 136-139.
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 10 No. 1 (2019) - Table of Contents
“Introduction to the Special Issue on Max Ernst” by Samantha Kavky, p. 1-6.
“Napoleon in the Wilderness: The Transmogrification of a Picture by Max Ernst” by Martin Schieder, p. 7-23.
“Seeing Through an (American) Temperament: Max Ernst’s Microbes, 1946-1953” by Danielle M. Johnson, p. 24-45.
“Max Ernst and the Aesthetic of Commercial Tourism: Max Among Some of His Favorite Dolls” by Carolyn Butler Palmer, p, 46-68.
“Arizona Dream: Maxime Rossi Meets Max Ernst” by Julia Drost, p. 69-83.
“Glowing Like Phosphorus: Dorothea Tanning and the Sedona Western” by Catriona McAra, p. 84-105.
“Conference Review: ‘SURREALISMS: the Inaugural Conference of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism’” by Kristen Strange, p. 106-110.
“Exhibition Review of ‘A Home for Surrealism: Fantastic Painting in Midcentury Chicago’” by Jennifer R. Cohen, p. 111-114.
“Exhibition Review: ‘Native American Art at Documenta 14 and the Issue of Democracy’” by Claudia Mesch, p. 115-120.
An emperor, a writer and an artist. Even though their stories played out in completely different epochs and under completely disparate conditions, they are united by historical analogy. The trans-epochal cross-fading of their biographies visualizes how Napoleon, Victor Hugo and Max Ernst were forced into exile by the caesuras of history and by the new rulers in their native countries. They experienced this as a kind of wilderness, as être d’ailleurs. In the pictorial understanding of the three protagonists, the crossing of the water as well as the wild rock by the sea, mark their dislodgment from, but also their longing for the lost homeland. They are symbols of dislocation respectively identification. At the center of this narrative we find the painting Napoleon in the Wilderness (1941, MoMA, New York) by Max Ernst, in which the painter comes to terms with a long wait, a dramatic passage, his arrival on foreign soil and his love affairs. His statement that he had already begun with the picture before his departure in France and, after his arrival, came to a new solution of the picture by turning it 180°, metaphorically describes not only the artistic new beginning on the other side of the Ocean, but also marks the turning point in his life.
This article discusses the 1940 "International Surrealist Exhibition," a paradigmatic event in the history of Surrealism's transition between Old and New Worlds. Breton’s brainchild, the show claimed a large part of Mexico's national art canon as part of the transnational Surrealist cause. Proving controversial in a heavily nationalist art scene, the show continues to occupy a conflicted position in the historiography of Mexican art. Many describe it as the pivotal event that drove art in Mexico away from nationalism, while others trivialize its impact. In the 1969 book El Surrealismo y el Arte Fantástico de México, the most ambitious response to the 1940 show ever produced, art historian Ida Rodríguez-Prampolini takes the latter position. Much of what Breton and his circle viewed as surrealist in Mexican art, Rodríguez argues, was instead part of the country’s own “fantastic” tradition, in place long before Surrealism arrived. A chauvinist treatise on Mexican identity at first glance, this essay argues that the book instead is emblematic of a long history of anxious relationships between definitions of national identity and the practice of art history in post-revolutionary Mexico.