Journal of Surrealism and the Americas (JSA)

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008) - Table of Contents

“Surrealism and Ethnography: Introduction” by Amy H. Winter, p. i-vi. 

“Totemic Landscapes and Vanishing Cultures Through the Eyes of Wolfgang Paalen and Kurt Seligmann” by Marie Mauzé, p. 1-24.

“Surrealist Visions of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Legacy of Colonialism: the Good, the (Revalued) Bad, and the Ugly” by Keith Jordan, p. 25-63.

“Surrealism and Inuit Art: The Fascination of the Far North” by Florence Duchemin-Pelletier, p. 64-94.

“Bound Objects and Blurry Boundaries: Surrealist Display and (Anti)Nationalism” by Susan Power, p. 95-113.

“Man Ray’s Lost and Found Photographs: Arts of the Americas in Context” by Wendy Grossman, p. 114-139.

“T.J. Demos, The Exiles of Marcel Duchamp” by Bradley Bailey, p. 140-144. 

“The Dalí Renaissance: New Perspectives on His Life and Art after 1940 and Danser Gala: L’Art Bouffe de Salvador Dalí” by Mary Ann Caws, p. 145-146.

“Review of ‘The Art of Lee Miller’: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2007” by Peter Barberie, p. 147-151.

“Frida Kahlo in Philadelphia: Life and Death” by Samantha Kavky, p. 152-156.

“Thinking the ‘Post-Indian’: Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World” by Claudia Mesch, p. 157-161.

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 5 No. 1 (2011) - Table of Contents

“Women in the Surrealist Conversation: Introduction” by Katharine Conley, p. i-xiv.

“Temple of the Word: (Post-) Surrealist Women Artists’ Literary Production in America and Mexico” by Georgiana M.M. Colvile, p. 1-18. 

“Leonora Carrngton, Mexico, and the Culture of  Death” by Jonathan P. Eburne, p. 19-32.

“The Lost Secret: Frida Kahlo and the Surrealist Imaginary” by Alyce Mahon, p. 33-54.

“Art, Science and Exploration: Rereading the Work of  Remedios Varo” by Natalya Frances Lusty, p. 55-76.

“Mary Low’s Feminist Reportage and the Politics of Surrealism” by Emily Robins Sharpe, p. 77-97. 

“Waste Management: Hitler’s Bathtub” by Laurie Monahan, p. 98-119.

“Kay Sage’s ‘Your Move’ and/as Autobiography” by Elisabeth F. Sherman, p. 120-133.

“Dorothea Tanning and her Gothic Imagination” by Victoria Carruthers, p. 134-158.

“The Colour of  My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art” by Steven Harris, p. 159-161.

‘Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention’: The Jewish Museum, November 15, 2009 - March 14, 2010” by Lewis Kachur, p. 162-167.

“Review of Gail Levin, ‘Lee Krasner: A Biography’” by Sandra R. Zalman, p. 168-171.

It is now generally agreed that Surrealism had a particular affection for non-Western art, objects of interior revelation and inexhaustible sources of the marvelous. The artists of the movement immersed themselves in study of foreign cultures and in the human spirit of people of distant regions. In their quest to renew appropriate sources to support their vision of the world, the movement was passionate about anything associated with the strange and the foreign. The Western world, having sunk into irrationality by abusing reason, and having broken the tie between the physical and the mental, needed to regain a new harmony. Primitive arts provided a path for reconquest of instinct and long-forgotten qualities.

These preoccupations, which they believed similar to their own, led them finally across the globe to the Far North. Some of them, such as Max Ernst, were hypnotized by the Hopi Indians, while others, notably Wolfgang Paalen, were under the spell of British Columbia. However, the fascination for the Far North had a definite place in the history of Surrealism and the Americas.

If their interest in the American Indians is today widely known, that for the Inuit of the Arctic still remains abstract. The principal difficulty of such a study lies in the flagrant absence of written testimonies. The only evidence of their interest is found in a few sentences, letters or poems. Collections, auction records, and inventories of books bought by the different protagonists are also very helpful for understanding their degree of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, these elements remain rather scarce, especially in comparison with the data available for other cultural areas. And it goes without saying that without the famous 1929 Surrealist Map of the World, early interest in the Far North would have remained unexplored. Indeed, this essential document shows an entirely rethought planisphere, in which Alaska, Labrador and Greenland are magnified and almost supplant Oceania.
This paper consequently aims at defining the appreciation of Inuit art, and more generally, the Inuit world, by the Surrealists. It will be shown that this interest was already firmly ingrained in the 1920's, long before the exile. It is highly likely that the renowned art dealer Charles Ratton invited members of the group to see the pieces he regularly acquired. We know that André Breton and Paul Eluard started their own collections soon thereafter and, as attested by the 1931 auction catalogue of their collections at the Hôtel Drouot, they possessed a good number of Inuit artifacts.

The exhibition of then still-little-known Inuit and Northwest Coast objects at the Galerie Charles Ratton in 1935 is also considered. This first encounter between the Surrealists and Yup'ik masks was of great importance since many Surrealist artists and writers, as we know, were fascinated by these shamanistic creations. Paul Eluard, in particular, was amazed by this art and wrote "La nuit est à une dimension" - the only published article dedicated to Inuit art – for Cahiers d’art on the occasion. In this text, and through a rereading of Knud Rasmussen, he reveals his own perception and understanding of the Inuit way of life, its struggles and hopes.

Emphasis is placed on the exile period, in which the attraction for Inuit art was at a climax and multiple opportunities for viewing and acquisition were possible. Most of the individuals gravitating around the Surrealist core saw, loved, and bought Yup’ik masks in New York. In a letter to her husband, Isabelle Waldberg summed up everyday life very well: “We threw ourselves into the poetic atmosphere of Eskimo masks, we are breathing Alaska and we are dreaming Tlingit and we are loving ourselves in the Haida totempoles.”

Finally, this paper will treat the subject from a slightly different perspective than that of previous studies: not only will the history of collecting and the visual panorama of the time be recalled, but the appearance of a specific Inuit representation, unavoidably bound to its unique territory, will also be questioned. Moreover, my argument will focus on possible affinities shared in Surrealist and Inuit thinking. The members of the group admired the aesthetic and plastic inventiveness of Inuit art; but they were also impressed by the inner life of this culture, found in its poetry and beliefs.

The conclusion of this paper will demonstrate that the Surrealists were generous in sharing their knowledge and discoveries. They thereby greatly contributed to acknowledgement of non-Western cultures and transcended the vision we have today of these arts.

Mary Low and Juan Breá’s Red Spanish Notebook: The First Six Months of the Revolution and the Civil War (1937) narrates their experiences volunteering alongside Spanish and foreign volunteers in Spain in an effort to suppress the Francoist uprising and to transform the country’s social structures. Although their text has received little critical attention in examinations of Surrealism and international Spanish Civil War involvement, Red Spanish Notebook provides a unique and useful example of surrealist documentary photography. The book contains no actual photographs. However, Low periodically uses ekphrasis to undermine dominant notions of journalistic distance, especially in her discussions of Spain’s nascent women’s movement. By describing photographs of foreign and Spanish women on the front lines and the home front, and offering alternative interpretations of the images, Low illustrates the impossibility of objective reporting. In so doing, she brings political attention away from the war itself, and towards Spanish women’s concurrent struggle for equality. This essay examines Low’s use of ekphrasis to argue that she elevates and legitimizes Spanish feminism by reporting social revolution in the style of war journalism, while simultaneously constructing an ethics ofinternational collaboration and sympathy. Through their commentary on the perpetual slippages inherent in supposedly objective journalism and documentary photography, Low’s writings provide unique insight into surrealist feminism.