Presentation Written

Presentation – Surrealism

For my presentation I decided to focus on Surrealism simply because it was the only Revolutionary Art movement I had not previosuly studied in depth before.

Surrealism began in the 1920’s it was developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important centre of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, film and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory. The 1920’s is often referred to as the ‘Roaring Twenties’ or the Jazz Age, when speaking about the United States, Canada or the United Kingdom. In Europe the decade is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Twenties" because of the economic boom following World War I.

At the end of WWI, there was much political instability because of the revolutions throughout Germany as it was divided politically, socially, and economically International Context With all the war debts and Germany had so many problems with so many countries, they had no help for themselves. Economic Extreme inflation led people to blame others and do whatever they had to in order to eat. Political Instability led people to riot and use violence as a means of control and Foodstuffs had to be imported as Minerals previously mined in Germany now had to be imported. No longer export raw materials. Loss of their merchant fleet deprived Germany of foreign exchange that other countries paid them for their fleet services. The 1920's was, for 8 years and 3/4 of 1929, a very happy decade. The last 1/4 was the Stock Market Crash that could have started the Great Depression that lasted straight through the 1930' s, not ending until mid-1940. A war started before 1920, and a war broke out in 1929. Although it was called the Great Depression, people killed others, killed themselves, became homeless, and became penniless.

Surrealism itself is a cultural movement which expresses imaginations and uses visual imagery from the subconscious mind to create art without the intention of logical precision. Most of the surrealist artist/photographers featured their work around unexpected juxtapositions and often tried to express the philosophical movement being artifact. The surrealists aim was 'to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality'. Surrealistic art forms characteristically differ from the conventional forms in not having specific shape or idea. It can be the expression of basic human instinct and imaginative faculties of the unconscious mind. It was influential in promoting Freudian and Jungian conceptions of the unconscious mind. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all revolutionary movements. The movement was one of the first cultural movements to question explicitly the relation between culture and politics, and its attempt to fuse social and cultural revolution has been a critical factor in shaping our sense of modernity. Although the historical importance of Surrealism is beyond doubt, politics plays an ambiguous role in the movement: it unquestionably pervades the work, informing its endeavours, yet it seems to avoid direct expression.

Surrealism in photography was one of the major revolutionary changes in the evolution of photography. Rather than art, photography was reviewed as a copying effort. Surrealism is the introduction of the ‘more than real' images to the art forms.

It motivated the photographers for more experiments it’s actually the real expression of mental emotions. Andre Breton describes surrealism in Surrealist Manifesto, as the pure psychic automatism expressed in the real functionality of a person.

The incorporation of surrealism into photography seems to be a strange act since both are contradictory, in the principles. But, in fact surrealism was a break through in photography, which motivated the photographers for more experiments.

Critics did not even imagine such a possibility. However "Marquise Casati" by Man Ray, made a change, as it featured multiple eyes for the photograph. Even though, it was an accidental blurring, it proved the chances for the feasibility of surrealistic works. Surrealist photographs are described as the images, which symbolically represent dreams, night mares, intoxication, sexual ecstasy, hallucination and madness. The difficulty with photography medium is that it imbibes the reality, and often the real images cannot be sufficient to express such unconventional patterns. But, the famous surrealist photographers are able to fulfill the task since they can use the photographic techniques effectively.

One of my favorite Surrealist photographers is International photographer David LaChapelle, born in March 11th 1963, he aims to capture fashion, which is what I specialise in then advertising, fine art, a director of documentaries and a video artist. Chapelle studied at the "North Carolina School of the Arts and School of Visual Arts in New York City" and was offered his first professional job by Pop Artist Andy Warhol. His work is fairly distinctive, colourful and he is and is noted for his surreal, unique, sexualized, and often humorous style and communicates with a wide and variegated audience. Chapelle does not use erotic images order to satisfy the curiosity of an audience of viewers and fans; he prefers to celebrate the freedom to use it precisely in order to liberate the representation of the body, primarily the female body, from the pornographic context and the mechanical association of passion and lust with sexual pleasure, abuse, and humiliation. Chapelle's work is combined with humor, at times even irony, but entirely lacks sarcasm.  His images have appeared on the covers of scores of leading fashion and entertainment magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair and Chapelle himself has played a pivotal role in the promotion of prestigious brands, such as Diesel, Nokia, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. He has photographed hundreds of celebrities, like Lady gaga Christina Aguilera and Naomi Campbell and always depicted provocatively, usually in full or partial nudity. Here are some examples of his most influential works... (2mins)

Which leads me on to Chapelle’s recent controversy, in the news on the 15^th of February, fashion photographer David LaChapelle took legal action over Pop Princess Rihanna's music video for her new single for S&M. Chapelle said 'the music video is directly derived from and substantially similar to the Chapelle works as shown' Chapelle said Rihanna had appropriated eight of his images into the video. It was claimed that Rihanna's video copied the 'composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting' of his work. He is suing for unspecified damages. One scene shows Rihanna 'walking' gossip blogger on a leash, while dressed in late. It corresponds with a 2002 LaChapelle image for Vogue, Aristocrats, which shows a similar scene. Other images include a striped room with girls wearing red afro wigs dancing on the furniture. The LaChapelle version, Striped Farce, is again remarkably similar. Yet another shows Lady Gaga naked, but for newsprint covering her private areas - Rihanna wears a similar outfit in her video. The singer's video was shot by Melina Matsoukas, who also directed her track Rude Boy. Which I think strikes controversy because does Rihanna really get a say in her what goes on in her videos and what they look like? Or is that the jobs of her producers and artists? I think so, surely they should be sued for this ‘plagiarism’ not Rihanna.

Which finally moves me on to talk about Surrealist Artist Max Ernst born on April 2, 1891 in Brühl, Germany. The German painter, printmaker, collagist and sculptor was a leading figure in the Dada and surrealist movements, possessed an amazing range of styles and techniques he was in. His memories of his childhood were remarkably vivid, and they provided him with many subjects for his later paintings. For example his fascination with birds that was established in his work which stemmed from an early confusion of birds and humans. In 1918 he made a series of collages, using illustrations from medical and technical magazines to form bizarre juxtapositions of images. Ernst was regarded as one of the initiators of this latter movement which aimed at the re-creation of magic effects through poetry and imagination. Ernst was particularly fascinating to women and this is evident in his work his interest to the female form and his juxtapositions of this. Which is similar to Chapelle’s work on erotic images emphasizing the female form, however on a much toned down level. Apart from the medium of collage, for which he is well known, Ernst developed other devices to express his fantastic vision. In 1925 he introduced his new technique of frottage; he placed sheets of paper on floorboards, tiles, bricks, or whatever was to hand and rubbed them with graphite, producing strange obsessive shapes. He did a series of haunting pictures of forests, birds, and hybrid beasts executed in a rough, painterly fashion. Here are a few examples of his works on the female form. (2 mins).