CFP: Global Surrealism | Convening Session Fall 2016

Global Surrealism | Convening Session Fall 2016
Stephanie D’Alessandro, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of International
Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago
Matthew Gale, Curator of Modern Art and Head of Displays, Tate Modern

In Fall 2020 the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern will present an
exhibition dedicated to the topic of global surrealism. The project takes
as its poetic inspiration the moment in 1941 when a core group of
Paris-based Surrealists including Victor Brauner, André Breton, Oscar
Dominguez, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Helena Holzer, Wifredo Lam, Jacqueline
Lamba, and André Masson, were living in Marseille and anxiously awaiting
their exit visas to escape from war-torn Europe. They lived a tight
communal existence and made art—group collages and exquisite corpse
drawings, as well as a set of Tarot cards that symbolizes the unknown fate
they faced together. This group would soon disperse and by the end of the
war, though many Surrealists survived, Surrealism itself would never be the
same. Historical assessments of careers today are defined by the war, and
the legacy of Surrealism in the U.S. is most often traced to the birth of
Abstract Expressionism. The Art Institute and Tate Modern’s project,
however, seeks to retrace these routes and re-draw the map of this most
important movement of the twentieth century. It challenges the simple
linear trajectory of influence that came to dominate most historical
accounts in order to explore Surrealism beyond the mainstream and to open
critical re-thinking. The foundations of the project can be seen in the
history of the movement itself: indeed, the need for a true “International
Surrealism” was identified already in 1935 by poet Benjamin Péret, who
warned that “to keep from drying out” the movement should “go beyond the
narrow framework of this country’s borders and adopt an international
aspect.”

Our aims are wide and include charting the global nature of Surrealism
before World War II; identifying the changing vehicles of international
transmission and exchange (exhibitions, journals and mail) during and after
the war; re-imaging models of artistic influence in the light of artists’
networks; identifying the character of international Surrealism after World
War II beyond the link between automatism and abstraction; and reassessing
the late careers of key early Surrealists (and early careers of key later
artists) within this larger global and postwar context. The goal will be to
understand Surrealism afresh with these international perspectives and how
we might draw a new Surrealist map of the world.

To begin to address our goals, we will organize a two-day, closed-door
convening session in Chicago in the fall of 2016. Papers from a multitude
of disciplines are invited to consider topics, which could include, but are
not limited to: what constitutes Surrealist art? How did national
traditions and differing social and political contexts across the globe
inform local manifestations of Surrealist art before, during, and after
World War II? How did these manifestations cohere to, form links with or
differ from one another? How does the concept of Surrealist art stand up to
scrutiny once we consider it in a global context? How did Surrealist art
influence the language of architecture, design, advertising and marketing
and what are its most significant manifestations? How did Surrealism impact
the social and political unrest of the 1960s? These and other questions
will be critical to our discussions.

To participate please send an abstract of 1-2 double-spaced pages, cv, and
a letter of interest by 30 June 2016 to:

Stephanie D’Alessandro
Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of International Art, The Art Institute
of Chicago [email protected]

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*Van Gogh's Bedrooms <http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/van-goghs-bedrooms>*February 
14–May 10

The Art Institute of Chicago
One of TripAdvisor’s Top Three Museums in the World 2013 • 2014 • 2015

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