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. 

Like a phoenix arising from the ashes of destruction in the aftermath of World War II, the surrealist movement, under the leadership of André Breton, reiterated its guiding principles and reasserted its aims at a time when interest in surrealism was waning and its relevance was increasingly contested. Reassembled in Paris after the displacement of exile, the core group resumed the staging of international exhibitions and the publication of journals, catalogues, and tracts—all privileged vehicles of collective activity ever since the interwar years. The collective spirit of the movement—a defining characteristic and the very foundation upon which surrealism had been established—remained central to its identity and its very existence in the postwar period. The rosters of those shows and publications attest to the renewal of surrealist ranks and reflect the movement’s shifting boundaries, both geographically and generationally.

The Cuban sculptor Agustín Cárdenas (1927-2001) offers a case in point. Arriving in Paris in 1955, thanks to a government-funded scholarship, Cárdenas quickly found himself within the surrealist orbit when he was invited to present his work at L’Étoile Scellée and La Cour d’Ingres galleries, both affiliated with postwar surrealism. His sculptures were also included in the movement’s last three “official” international exhibitions: "Exposition inteRnatiOnale du Surrealisme (EROS)" in 1959-60, "Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanters’ Domain" in 1960-61, and "Absolute Deviation" in 1965. Surrealism thus provided a platform from which Cárdenas launched his career in Paris.

This paper will examine how the primitivist-inflected abstract modernist idiom characteristic of Cárdenas’ sculpture, from the early 1950s on, serves to position it at a nexus between surrealism and postwar abstraction, and increasingly—especially after the dissolution of the Parisian surrealist group in 1969—within an expanding network, exemplified by group shows organized along entirely different lines (medium-specific, geographic or national affiliation, etc.), such as the New School of Paris, Latin American and eventually Cuban art. An analysis of selected readings of Cárdenas work, by “certified” members of the surrealist movement (Breton and his close collaborator José Pierre) or fellow travelers, who crossed paths with surrealism (French art critic and theorist of postwar European abstraction, Charles Estienne and Martiniquan poet and author Edouard Glissant), will shed light on its reception. And finally, I will address Cárdenas’ Afro-Cuban heritage in relation to his compatriot Wifredo Lam as well as the broader Caribbean context in which surrealism intersects with anti-colonial, revolutionary action and post-colonial discourses.

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. 6 No. 1 (2012) - Table of Contents

“Notes for a Historiography of Surrealism in America, or the Reinterpretation of the Repressed” by Samantha Kavky, p. i-ix.

“What Makes a Collection Surrealist?: Twentieth-Century Cabinets of Curiosities in Paris and Houston” by Katharine Conley, p. 1-23.

“Dalí, Magritte, and Surrealism’s Legacy, New York c. 1965” by Sandra Zalman, p. 24-38.

“‘What Makes Indians Laugh’: Surrealism, Ritual, and Return in Steven Yazzie and Joseph Beuys” by Claudia Mesch, p. 39-60. 

“Cracking up an Alligator: Ethnography, Juan Downey’s Videos, and Irony” by Hjorleifur Jonsson, p. 61-86.

“Review of Effie Rentzou, ‘Littérature Malgré Elle: Le Surréalisme et la Transformation du Littéraire’” by Pierre Taminiaux, p. 87-90.

“In Wonderland: the Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States” by Susan L. Aberth, p. 91-94.

Does school participatory budgeting (SPB) increase students’ political efficacy? SPB, which is implemented in thousands of schools around the world, is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making in which students determine how to spend a portion of the school’s budget. We examined the impact of SPB on political efficacy in one middle school in Arizona. Our participants’ (n = 28) responses on survey items designed to measure self-perceived growth in political efficacy indicated a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.46), suggesting that SPB is an effective approach to civic pedagogy, with promising prospects for developing students’ political efficacy.