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
Filtering by
- Creators: Sherman, Elisabeth
- Creators: Flores, David A.J. Murrieta
General Topics Issue No. 2
Cover Image: Kati Horna, S.NOB #1 cover, 1962, ink on paper. Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Mexico City, Mexico
Published: 2021-04-19
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 11 No. 2 (2020) - Table of Contents
"Agustín Cárdenas: Sculpting the 'Memory of the Future' by Susan L. Power, p. 98-119.
"Bataillean Surrealism in Mexico: S.NOB Magazine (1962)" by David A.J. Murrieta Flores, p. 120-151.
"Mexican Carnival: Profanations in Luis Buñuel's Films Nazarín and Simón del desierto" by Lars Nowak, p. 152-177.
"Giorgio de Chirico, the First Surrealist in Mexico?" by Carlos Segoviano, p. 178-197?
"Exhibition Review: 'I Paint My Reality: Surrealism in Latin America' by Danielle M. Johnson, p. 198-204.
The first translations of Georges Bataille work available to a Mexican audience were made by writer Salvador Elizondo. After having read Les larmes d’eros (The Tears of Eros) in 1961, he founded S.NOB magazine one year later with the help of a wide group of collaborators that included Surrealist artists like Leonora Carrington and Kati Horna. S.NOB set out to oppose the closed-off nature of Mexican ‘official culture’, at the time dominated by State-promoted cultural nationalism. The magazine was part of a wider crisis of Mexican art and identity triggered in the 1950s and later known as la Ruptura (the Rupture). This new wave was concurrent with the growth of youth and mass popular culture, which found weapons of revolt against cultural nationalism in foreign cinema, music, and other emergent culture industries.
This essay will argue that S.NOB articulates an avant-garde, surrealist discourse that departs from the main current associated with André Breton. Instead, it closely follows the late writings of Georges Bataille via Elizondo’s translations and interpretations of his work. It will overview the theoretical aspects of Elizondo’s reading of Bataille in order to assess images and texts of the magazine, primarily Kati Horna’s photography, Alberto Gironella’s paintings (reproduced in print), and Tomás Segovia and Fernando Arrabal’s writings.
The objective is to show, through a sample analysis of the magazine’s discourse, the Bataillean construction of this particular collective’s avant-garde revolt. In it, the legacy of the surrealist movement in Mexico finds itself at a distance from the recurrent associations of Breton’s proclamations about the country, as well as the polemics derived from the "International Surrealist Exhibition" held in 1940 and the status of the “fantastic” in the history of Mexican art thereafter.
The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 4 No. 1 (2010) - Table of Contents
“Out of Field (Fuera de campo): Marcel Duchamp in Buenos Aires” by Graciela Speranza, p. 1-14.
“Légitime défense: From Communism and Surrealism to Caribbean Self-Definition” by Lori Cole, p. 15-30.
“Remedios Varo's Mexican Drawings” by Rosa Berland, p. 30-42.
“Bee Dreaming: the Surreal Odysseys Behind Alan Glass’ Wunderkabinetts” by Gloria Orenstein, p. 43-59.
“Review of Patricia Allmer, ‘René Magritte: Beyond Painting’ by Terri Geis, p. 60-63.
“Review of Eric Ratcliffe, ‘Ithell Colquhoun: Pioneer Surrealist, Artist, Occultist, Writer and Poet’” by Elisabeth Sherman, p. 64-68.
“‘Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective’: Issues of Identity and Camouflage” by Samantha Kavky, p. 69-72.
“Review of Catherine Millet, ‘Dalí and Me’” by Jonathan S. Wallis, p. 73-77.
“Maria Martins: the Open Secret of Étant donnés. Review of ‘Marcel Duchamp. Étant donnés’” by Frédérique Joseph-Lowery, p. 78-85.
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.
Kay Sage documented her final body of work in an artist's book titled "Your Move", published in 1961 in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name. Through the combination of reproductions of assemblage works included in the exhibition, and a poem of the same title, Sage weaved in complex references to her past and her artistic influences, while using the metaphors of games throughout to draw the disparate ideas together. This combination of text and image, reference and metaphor, presents a complicated and never-stable portrait of Sage as she saw her own identity, always changing and maleable.
