Posted to "surrealism@think.net"Subject: strike time
I have read all your posts as a great wind storm rages outside my window.The universal thoughts seem to be that, as interesting as art history may be, one has to contend that Surrealism itself cannot be found in any historical account and that it is in itself much more than a movement stuck in time (sorry for repeating this again Pierre). Of course, to anyone that has worked with it on a personal level, this fact becomes more than obvious.
Barrett explains Surrealism as "action, exploration, experiment and research directed toward the integration of the liberated creative imagination with all aspects of life." This is the closest to a definition that I have yet heard. The only problem I have with this is the use of the words "directed toward." There is no direction, and no crawling toward ends, as Barrett himself remarks in the same post. (Of course Barrett and Wm. and I have been through this for a good year: trying to define something that in itself is ultimately indefinable).
The interesting thing to me about art history is to see how it has evolved, not through time, but through techniques and through mediums. Wm. once revealed to me how the abstract expressionist movement was simply the tail (though not the tail end) of the so-called Surrealism movement. (I used to visit an occult store named "Lady Dale's So Called." It was an interesting place, etc., but it occurs to me that it might be interesting to name the period of time that is traditionally looked at in the art history books as Surrealist, as "Surrealism So Called.").
In any case I think it might be helpful as Surrealists to employ a rule that time and space are both limiting concepts, that have no relation to the quests of Surrealism at all. Specifically strike any idea that Surrealism began and ended in any period and free it in the same way the artist frees his imagination.
This train of thought becomes difficult for some who may assume that this means that everything is Surrealism. No, Surrealism is a specific thing, but as with every living thing it is an evolving organism, not so much through time or space and certainly not with any discernible direction, but somewhat like the wind outside my window, it moves like a phantom, unrestricted by its material realm.
But this is simply a thought.