News
The histories and legacies of the surrealist movement continue to attract scholarly interest. The following listing presents current and upcoming events on surrealism worldwide.
Calls for Papers:
- Surrealism, Science Fiction, and Comic Books
Courtauld Institute
Saturday 22 January 2011Proposals are invited for a conference exploring the overlooked relationship between surrealism, science fiction and the comic book. Proposals should be of about 300 words for papers lasting about 30 minutes, and should be sent to gavin.parkinson@courtauld.ac.uk by 1 August 2010.
- Ashgate Studies in Surrealism
This series has been initiated because it has become clear that key areas of surrealist inquiry are currently unsupported by relevant English-language books in spite of the continuing high visibility of surrealism across the world in popular and scholarly publications and museum exhibitions. Initially through collections of essays on surrealism and nature, surrealism and the Middle Ages, and surrealism and the postwar avant-garde, Ashgate Studies in Surrealism aims to remedy this situation. The publisher and series editor invite proposals for publications on surrealism covering philosophical, social, artistic, anthropological, and literary themes. In addition, we would like to hear from authors of monographs on artists and writers connected to surrealism who have been overlooked or marginalized. Although this is an 'academic' series, proposals critical of the academicization of writing on surrealism – those that adhere to the scholarly conventions of the university – are also welcome.
Gavin Parkinson
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
- Scientific Poetics in Modern Reviews, 1900-1940
16 - 18 June 2011
Université de Haute Alsace (Mulhouse)This two-day conference in French and English will investigate the relationship between science and art within literary and artistic reviews of the period 1900-1940. Proposals (300-500 words) are to be received by 15 Novermber 2010. Speakers' accomodations and meals will be covered. The publication of the conference proceedings is scheduled for 2012.
Conferences and Symposia:
- Surrealism and the Americas
Rice University
Thursday 4 - Friday 5 November 2010
This conference focuses on the interactions and patters of influence among surrealist artists and collectors within the Americas that have been marginalized within dominant narratives of surrealism and European Exile.
Exhibitions:
- The Subversion of Images. Surrealism, Photography, Film
23 September - 11 January 2010, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
26 February - 23 May 2010, Fotomuseum Winthertur
16 June - 12 September 2010, Fondación Mapfre, Madrid
This exhibition brings together nearly 400 works, giving us a rare overview of surrealist photography. A broad selection of the finest proofs by Man Ray, Hans Bellmer, Claude Cahun, Raoul Ubac, Jacques-André Boiffard, Maurice Tabard will be shown alongside rarely seen images which reveal a number of surrealist ways of using photography, such as publications in magazines or artists' books, advertisements, collections of images, fascination for the raw print, pictures taken in photo booths and group photographs etc. The event introduces the public to unknown series of collages by such renowned artists as Paul Eluard, André Breton, Antonin Artaud and Georges Hugnet, the photographic games of Léo Malet and Victor Brauner and highlights personalities like Artür Harfaux and Benjamin Fondane.
- The Surreal House
Barbican Art Centre
10 June - 12 September 2010
Architects Carmody Groarke sign this recreation of surrealism's haunted interiors – featuring a host of artists, architects and film makers including Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Man Ray, Joseph Cornell and Maya Deren through to more contemporary figures, among them; Louise Bourgeois, Rebecca Horn, Edward Kienholz and Rem Koolhaas. At times enchanting, playful and at others, deeply disquieting, The Surreal House is a dwelling that is essentially everything that the rational, functional Modernist house is not.
- Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex
19 June - 12 September 2010
Three major international exhibitions celebrating the work of three leading women surrealists including the English painter Leonora Carrington (b 1917), shown alongside works by her friends, and fellow Mexican residents, the Spanish painter Remedios Varo (1908–1963) and Hungarian photographer Kati Horna (1912–2000).
- Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Moravian Gallery, Brno Czech Republic
23 June - 24 October 2010
The surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s focused on literature, painting, photography and the object, and the surrealists’ publishing activities provided only hints of what a fully conceived surrealist graphic design or typography might look like. Many of the most suggestive early examples came from Czechoslovakia, where surrealism would become a lasting influence. Subsequently, surrealist ideas and images had a profound impact on image-makers in every sphere of art and design, and by the 1960s the effects of surrealism were widely felt in international graphic communication. Uncanny traces this intermittent line of development up to the present.