A quiz program on the topic of surrealist exhibitions by Jason Abdelhadi If, as Hegel says, “at night all cows are black”, imagine how much more complicated the matter gets when it comes to exhibitions, which may contain a multitude of such animals and then some. Recently a certain “International Exhibition of Surrealism” seems to [...]
“But I gotta, kn-kn-kn-know what-what's your fan-ta-ta-sy” - Ludacris PART 1: ANDRÉ & THE ALIENS New Mexico, 1942. On a dusty road between Taos, and Roswell… Deep Night. And in our great solitude, we orbit. We? We, the translucents. The wireframe ones. We, the thousand-years young. The still air shifts beneath us—a car is seen [...]
A translation of a recent dedication by Joël Gayraud for Michel Zimbacca. The original french text follows below. For Michel Zimbacca In reply to the stifling question from the teacher: “Well kids! What do you want to be when you grow up?” one raises his hand and says: “Hairdresser!”, “Pilot”, “Lawyer!” “Firefighter!”... Only a single [...]
Open letter to academic students of surrealism By Mattias Forshage 1. We share a passion. But we are on different sides of a fence. We started off with some kind of negotiating back in ’66 in Cerisy under the recognition that we represented very different approaches to the same topic but possibly should be able [...]
The film selected for this game was done so before any of the participants had seen it or knew much about it. The questions were compiled relatively quickly based on associations, chance, random ideas—risking everything on certain weird hopes and projections, and trusting that they would all in one way or another find their mark. [...]
October, hello! Welcome back, welcome. You kitschweird diamond, you! Withoutadoubt, the most surrealist of all our months. Smileyface. And we love it too, we really do. That special spectral time-of-year, October—when the ol’ veil-between-worlds is at her honeycomb’ed thinest. (& getting thinner each year, too…!) I speak of that bluest of veils, that one between [...]
Times of tumult call for tumultuous imaginations. There is a wonderful germ lurking in the 19th century romantic genre of “closet drama”. The term is usually applied to an unhinged dramatic production by some radical poet, so vast or unusual in concept, and so beyond the realm of possibility, as to be unstageable. Could this [...]
“In a place beyond time, comes a terrifying challenge beyond imagination!” “Conquest" (1983) is a celluloid spirit who was birthed (apparently) from inside some still-uncharted void, a lost Surspace where both time and the imagination have been thoroughly transcended. (At least, if its marketing tagline is to be believed) This possibly facetious origin story may perhaps [...]
Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It’s a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg. - André Breton If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it [...]
Beautiful, marvelous week. America is on fire, america is shining, america is a flower of joyful rage. A dead tree, bearing unexpected fruit. A fresh batch of lynchings by repulsive pigs and pig wannabes earlier in May. Yet this time it felt different. The wound had a stronger sting to it. Patience already worn thin. [...]
