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"Kuenzli has done film studies a service by gathering some of the best minds in the fields reflecting on specific topics." -- Andrew Horton, Film Quarterly "A comprehensive, clear and factual presentation of the subject . . . very useful." -- Simonne Fischer, French Review This groundbreaking collection of thirteen original essays analyzes connections between film and two highly influential twentieth-century movements. The essays, which comment on specific films and deal with theoretical and topical questions, are framed by a documentary section that includes a photographic reproduction of the manuscript scenario for Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's L'Etoile de mer, and an introduction by the editor that provides a cogent working model for the difference between Dada and Surrealist perspectives. CONTENTS: Introduction, Rudolf E. Kuenzli Essays Dada/Cinema? · Thomas Elsaesser. Léger's Ballet mécanique · Judi Freeman. Anemic Vision in Duchamp: Cinema as Readymade · Dalia Judovitz. Exploring the Discursive Field of the Surrealist Scenario Text · Richard Abel. Benjamin Fondane's "Scenarii intournables," · Peter Christensen. Slit Screen · David Wills. Constellated Visions: Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's L'Etoile de mer · Inez Hedges. The Image and the Spark: Dulac and Artaud Reviewed · Sandy Flitterman-Lewis. Dali and Un Chien andalou: The Nature of a Collaboration · Haim Finkelstein. Un Chien andalou: The Talking Cure · Stuart Liebman. Between the Sign of the Scorpion and the Sign of the Cross: L'Âge d'or · Allen Weiss. Documentary Surrealism: On Land without Bread · Tom Conley. The Critical Grasp: Bunuelian Cinema and Its Critics · Linda Williams. Documents Robert Desnos's and Man Ray's Scenario for L'Etoile de mer Bibliography. ... Read more

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"Mirror Images is a welcome successor to Whitney Chadwick'ssignificant work on the hitherto neglected history of women andsurrealism. An impressive list of contributors explores the byways,bringing this tragic, funny, and engrossing story up to recent times."-- Lucy Lippard, author of The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays onFeminist Art

During the 1930s and 1940s, women artists associated with the Surrealistmovement produced a significant body of self-images that have noequivalent among the works of their male colleagues. While male artistsexalted Woman's otherness in fetishized images, women artists exploredtheir own subjective worlds. The self-images of Claude Cahun, DorotheaTanning, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, RemediosVaro, Kay Sage, and others both internalize and challenge conventionsfor representing femininity, the female body, and female subjectivity.Many of the representational strategies employed by these pioneerscontinue to resonate in the work of contemporary women artists. Thewords "Surrealist" and "surrealism" appear frequently in discussions ofsuch contemporary artists as Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, CindySherman, Francesca Woodman, Kiki Smith, Dorothy Cross, Michiko Kon, andPaula Santiago.

This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the MIT ListVisual Arts Center, explores specific aspects of the relationshipbetween historic and contemporary work in the context of Surrealism. Thecontributors reexamine art historical assumptions about gender,identity, and intergenerational legacies within modernist andpostmodernist frameworks. Questions raised include: how did women inboth groups draw from their experiences of gender and sexuality? What docontemporary artistic practices involving the use of body images owe tothe earlier examples of both female and male Surrealists? What is therelationship between self-image and self- knowledge?

Contributors: Dawn Ades, Whitney Chadwick, Salomon Grimberg, Katy Kline,Helaine Posner, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Dickran Tashjian.

More information is available at our book-of-the-month site. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent analysis of Women and Surrealism
Although the publication of "Women and Surrealism" by Whitney Chadwick in the 1980s brought about a larger appreciation of women involved in the movement, there is still a surprising shortage of material published about surrealist artists such as Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo."Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self Representation" offers a series of insightful essays on these and other artists' images and ideas of self.Most interestingly, many of the essays discuss the work of Surrealist "descendents," including Cindy Sherman and Louise Bourgeois.Overall, very well constructed and written, with essays by the leading scholars in this still under-appreciated area. ... Read more

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Surrealism is a survey of the twentieth century's longest lasting and, arguably, most influential art movement. Championed and held together by Andre Breton for over forty years, Surrealism was France's major avant-garde artistic tendency from 1924 onwards, rapidly spreading around the globe to become an international phenomenon. During World War II Surrealism's exiled artists and writers had a major impact on American art and were a primary influence for the Abstract Expressionist generation. The official surrealist movement continued to the end of Breton's life in 1966, and its legacy is still pervasive today, in contemporary art as well as in numerous quotations from surrealist imagery in cinema, advertising and the media.

The Survey essay by Mary Ann Caws - a distinguished scholar, translator and associate of the Surrealists - describes in clear, perceptive and lively prose the essential characteristics that define Surrealism, as well as tracing a concise path through the chronology of this prolific and wide-ranging movement. The text also demonstrates how surrealist art and writing are interdependent. The Works section follows the movement from its beginnings in the 1920s up to the 1940s and 1950s. Its six sections trace the themes which predominated at different stages: Chance and Freedom - the earliest work, characterized by complete automatic spontaneity; Poetics of Vision - the strategies of surrealist image-making, reflecting the mind's inner visions; Elusive Objects - the fascination with objects of all kinds from which emerged artworks such as Meret Oppenheim's celebrated fur-lined cup and saucer; Desire - the investigation of desire, eroticism and 'mad love' which is central and unique to the movement; Delirium - Surrealism's high-risk engagement with extreme mental states and disturbing, uncanny visions; and, the Infinite Terrains of later Surrealism, ranging from Joseph Cornell's magical assemblages in box frames, like 'theatres of the mind', to the infinite fields and dynamic energy of late surrealist painting at the dawn of Abstract Expressionism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

All Things Surreal
//Webster's Dictionary// defines surrealism as a modern movement in art and literature, in which an attempt is made to portray or interpret the workings of the unconscious mind as manifested in dreams: it is characterized by an irrational, fantastic arrangement of material. IIIn this anthology of art //Surrealism//, edited by Mary Ann Caws, exposes just that. Caws arranges this compilation into sections that are divisible and exchangeable within themselves. Various, notorious artists from 1915 to 1950's are depicted with each of their biographies housed in the back. IIMore than your average coffee table book, it begins with an art history lesson, a backdrop preview of what is coming in the pages ahead. No apologies or excuses for surrealism art is made, only a vested tribute of appreciation to the inner workings of surrealism art. The pictures, both black and white and full color, are often disturbing, confusing but always interpretable and strangely familiar. Sources are acclaimed wonderfully throughout the book. Overall, //Surrealism// is a good large paperback volume to add to your library collection on art...just keep it away from the kids.

Reviewed by M Chris Johnson

Surrealiasm book
This book is exactly what I wanted. It was delivered really quickly and in a huge box with extra padding inside so that my book would not get damaged. Thanks! ... Read more

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A radically new history of French surrealism by a brilliant young art historian.

In contrast to the orthodox view that surrealism slid into a terminal decline after the 1930s, Alyce Mahon shows that the movement was instead transformed in the war and postwar years as the Surrealists redefined and extended their interests in social crisis, political engagement, transgressive art, myth, the occult, and the erotic.

Through "the politics of Eros" the Surrealists attempted to shatter the repression intrinsic to bourgeois society by appealing to individual desire as a route to political consciousness and action. Dr. Mahon analyzes the conception and organization of their four international exhibitions from 1938 to 1965, showing how they evoked a three-dimensional world of dream, desire, and sexual pleasure.

This intellectual tour de force draws on interviews with such key artists as Jean-Jacques Lebel, Mimi Parent, and Jean Benoit, and uses primary sources to advance our knowledge of the work of the better-known Surrealists, from Hans Bellmer to Meret Oppenheim. The Second World War, the Algerian War, and May 1968 are related in new ways to surrealism as a major countercultural force throughout this critical period in French history. By documenting the ways in which the Surrealists used sound, lighting, special effects, and performance art to create a living, theatrical environment, Dr. Mahon sheds new light on topics central to understanding art in our time.

Illustrated with key works of art as well as rare contemporary photographs and documents, the book is destined to become a classic work on one of the most popular and controversial art movements of the twentieth century. 189 illustrations in color and black and white. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good comparative work about movers and shakers
This is quite a good book.I used it to research a paper on DADA and Surrealist theatre, and as there are not too many books available out there (in English anyways) on this particular aspect of DADA and Surrealism.It's broken down by artist.Each of these artists were involved in many other aspects of the avant-garde in Switzerland, France and Germany, but most other books will hardly mention their "theatre" work.Of course they were not attempting to produce regular theatre, but what they did accomplish in performance is well explained and detailed.Another good book for this sort of thing is "PERFORMANCE: LIVE ART 1909 TO THE PRESENT" by Roselee Goldberg (and it has pictures!), but it lacks some of the detail this work has.For any DADA or Surrealist enthusiast, this is an excellent filler-in on many details not easily found in other sources, and for a theatre and performance enthusiast, it is an interesting description and breakdown of art movements many people do not know about today. Oh, and it's also fairly readable and is of course, also somewhat biographical.A good and informative source. ... Read more

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This looks at the Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 30s from a political perspective, rather than from the usual standpoint of an artistic and cultural movement. It traces Surrealism from its origins in Dada, through the extraordinarily creative inter-war years and its stormy relationship with the Communist Party, to its present day legacy. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

Posthumans of the World: Go Dada!
If you are like me, you always pay attention when Andrei Codrescu recites a commentary on National Public Radio.The man's Romanian accent is unmistakable, even though I can't help being reminded of that of Bela Lugosi and thus of Count Dracula.That Codrescu edits the website "Exquisite Corpse" helps reinforce this reference, but one must remember that "exquisite corpse" was a technique used by Dadaists to add words to a composition in sequence, not knowing what had gone before, and winding up with a sentence like, "The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine."In fact, that was one of the sentences they came up with (in French) when they first played the game, and it gave the game its name.Codrescu is devoted to Dadaists and Dadaism, and now has written _The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess_ (Princeton University Press), which is full of tricks."Posthuman" is a term that came in science fiction twenty years ago; we are posthumans because technological enhancements allow us to be something more than mere biological specimens.So, as the book says, "This is a guide for instructing posthumans in living a Dada life.It is not advisable, nor was it ever, to lead a Dada life."Not only that, but if you are pursuing the goal of living a Dada life, you won't find this a self-help book worth a nickel.What you might find is a bit of history of the early Dada movement and its stars, a meditation on the continuing importance of Dadaism, and a great deal of sly, desultory, and self-deprecating wordplay.Plus, it comes in a handy, long, slim volume that easily slips into the posthuman's pocket for daily consultation."We need a guide," says the _Guide_, "that is at once historical and liberating.Or just hysterical and tonic."

At the heart of the book is the chess game played between Tristan Tzara, "the daddy of Dada", and Vladimir Lenin, "the daddy of Communism".And maybe there was such a game, though there is no evidence for it, and no reason even to believe that the two influential thinkers ever met, although it's within the realm of possibility.In 1916 in Zurich, Lenin was making plots just a few blocks from where Tzara was making performances.But as far as Codrescu is concerned, "These two daddies battled each other over the chessboard of history, proposing two different paths for human development."They were both fighting against the tyranny of tradition, but in completely different ways."Dada played for chaos, libido, the creative, and the absurd.Communism deployed its energy for reason, order, and understandable social taxonomy, predictable structures, and the creation of `new man.'"The game was high stakes indeed."Tzara, the revolutionary poet, is playing chess with Lenin, a mass-murdering ideologue.The winner will win the world, a prize neither is thinking about in 1916."There are plenty of paradoxes here; for one, "These two people do not agree to society's rules, yet they obey the laws of chess!"Also, chess is played without words, but these were both great talkers, silent for the duration.Nothing was the same after the game when the players go their separate ways: "Tristan Tzara to Cabaret Voltaire where the nightly Dada performance is unraveling centuries of certitudes about art, Lenin to a secret meeting with an envoy of the German ambassador Romberg, who will eventually convince the German General Staff to provide Lenin and his list of carefully chosen comrades safe passage to Russia where the Tsar has just abdicated."

There is plenty of history here, unreliable or not, and in its way, the _Guide_ is its own manifesto for the movement.There are many jokes and impenetrable portions, as befits any Dadaist guide."In current popular discourse," says Codrescu, "nature has come to mean `nature,' or `the nature channel,' and thus is wilderness removed from it and its destructive _and_ creative force neutralized."Dada, the _Guide_ shows, will ever be instructive, puzzling, and entertaining.The _Guide_ is laid out in encyclopedic form, so it need not be read page after page (and perhaps it should be read randomly going from sentence to sentence), but the "organization" is eccentric; for instance, if you want to look up Hugo Ball, who created "The Dadaist Manifesto," remember to look under H for "hugo, ball"."We were mistaken in the previous paragraph," Codrescu at one point explains (or fails to),"the marvelous was not a dog, but a parrot in a gold cage guarded by dogs.We apologize." No apologies necessary.

The Way of Andrei Codrescu
The Posthuman DaDa Guide
by Andrei Codrescu

Codrescu's heroes are suitably Romanian:Tzara, Ionesco, Brâncusi, Eliade, & perhaps E. Cioran.Although I've read too few of his books, he is in danger of joining my line-up of dangerous heroes, a band of rebel Jewish exiles: Marx, Freud, Trotsky.(Does the Diaspora never end?Good for Goys, bad for Them?)These guys didn't go or rest easy.

How can we achieve Kensho, seek the True, the Beautiful & the Good while doing DaDa, a risky mocking & collage making of the Present?It seems desirable to have a life of Buddhist tranquility, to practice a Platonic Orientation, & to show the nonsense in our sangsaric, kaleidoscopic world.Codrescu does seem to be calm & to seek those ideals while pointing out the dangerous necessity for smashing, cutting up & rearranging the pieces.[Meditate, seek the Platonic, use Merzian scissors.]And all our postmodern add-ons tend to make us posthumans in need of this unusual help.In the Guide he tells us that the Balkanization of his birthplace contributed to his inclination toward collage [perhaps even to a world view of Welten Merz!].

I hardy dig Codrescu deep enough to locate, mine & put his thoughts & pieces all together--the world's rearranged Mirz is certainly yet to be.For other readers the prospect may be the exciting same.We have the box, we have the pieces, we just don't have the picture.We put pieces down, we pick them up.We slowly turn the rough edges in our hand. We try it here, we try it there.No, not that way--well, turn it 90° or 180°--yes!And repeat & repeat the loop.And partake.And learn.It's Andrei's better world, slowly turning on a different not at all Fascist axis, coming our way, coming into view!

In 1916 his hero, the Romanian Dadaist & collagist Tristan Tzara plays chess with Lenin for the world.Lenin seems to win.The rowdy life of the Zurich dive in which those chess games played out repeats in New Orleans.As Tristan with Vladimir, so Andrei with our incompetent masters.They seem to be winning.But, as the text points out, so did Lenin.

Back in the 60's The Limelighters had a fun/fake "Romania, Romania" folk song.Mamaliga was featured & mocked.I'm not sure now if this porridge is not best eaten cold.Andrei serves his critiques hot & funny, thoughtful & sad.This book is a brilliant examination of the origins & perils of DaDa, the characters, their exile. All this by a multilingual literary genius, wit & social critic.Highly recommended!

Dada Made Comprehensible - And Relevant
Codrescu brilliantly and humorously shows how productive the "anti-art" of Dada was - and is. He makes the best case I've read for the movement's historical importance and continued relevance, and he does it with sustained ebullience. Dada's stress on nonsense never made so much sense. By making Dada clear and useful, Codrescu risks betraying Dada's own principled stance of opposing all principles, but he remains true to Dada's negations while affirming them. This is a neat trick; this is a great little book.

A Welcome Remedy for the Digitized Soul
I expected this slim volume, suitable (almost) for carrying in your hip pocket, to be more a work of sardonic humor or a collection of essays about the absurdity of modern life.Instead, Andrei Codrescu has put together a book that traces the Dada Non-Art Movement from its beginnings during WWI to the present.It's also a work of sardonic humor (which is very funny when Codrescu wants it to be), but rather than a series of brief essays, the book follows its themes across almost an entire century.He lets us know that Dada, which eschewed the future and art, had the unintended impact of begetting all manner of art movements, from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism to the literary style wrongly known as "post-modernism" -- Vonnegut, Barth, Heller, Barthelme, etc.

In the end, Codrescu assures us, art can remain a redemptive force in a world in which the Posthuman has overtaken all other movements and philosophies.As we watch our world steadily become digitized, the general stance of Dada might be exactly what we need.I love this book.

not for beginners, but good food for thought
While most people might have heard of the term "Dada," few could actually muster up the courage to define it. What's great about this book is not only its design - it's lovely and small and features provocative art and really nice fonts - but also its willingness to explain Dadaism with Dadaism. Without getting too wacky.

I admire Codrescu's book for two reasons: One, he makes history fun - with loads of examples and insider stories and a sense of humor that is light yet heavy at the same time. He is not afraid to stick it to us "posthumans," reminding us that in our penchant for better iPods, faster Googling, and wireless boob jobs, we are placing the world "in parentheses" (maybe a reference to the structuralist "brackets" of Saussure that one would place actual things in so that the words that we chose to represent those things could be further studied) and are thus missing out on a lot of life.

My second reason for liking this book is that it made me want to seek out the nonsensical, play it up, enjoy life a little. Dada was all about liberating us from our cultural and metaphysical maps that we are so intent on staring at that we miss the scenery. Codrescu reminds us to look up. He does it at the expense of communism, which I can understand in one sense because Dada was born in a place that suffered under dictators who used Marx and Lenin to oppress the masses - the opposite of what communism is supposed to do.

So I guess that's my beef with it: Why you gotta pick on communism, Andrei? You seem to have a radical bent to your philosophy that would inure you to Marxism...Surely you believe that it *could* work and just hasn't or didn't? I don't know that Dada is the answer to the true oppression of the masses. But it was fun learning more about it. ... Read more

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This study traces the development of Surrealist theory of visual art and its reception, from the birth of Surrealism to its institutionalization in the mid-1930s. Situating Surrealist art theory in its theoretical and discursive contexts, Kim Grant demonstrates the complex interplay between Surrealism and the critical expectations of contemporaries. She examines the challenge to Surrealist art raised by the magazine Cahiers d'Art, which promoted a group of young painters dedicated to a liberated and poetic painting process that was in keeping with the formalist evolution of modern art. Grant also discusses the centrality of visual art in Surrealism as a material manifestation of poetry; the significance of poetry in French theories of modern art; and the difficulties faced by an avant-garde movement at a time when contemporary audiences expected revolutionary innovation. ... Read more

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Surrealism was one of the most interesting and influential art movements of the twentieth century. A collective adventure begun by a small group of intellectuals in Paris in the early 1920s, among them Max Ernst, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, its influence was felt through the rest of continental Europe and in Britain, the Americas, Mexico and Japan.This introduction offers new insights into the complexities of the Surrealist imagination. It documents how the artists met, the relationship of Surrealism to Dada, and the influences that formed the movement, particularly the work of Sigmund Freud. The position of women, as Surrealist subject-matter as well as artists in their own right, and Surrealism in the cinema and theater are all examined. There is close analysis of individual works, many of them from the Tate Gallery collection. ... Read more

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Huelsenbecks memoirs bring to life the concernsintellectual, artistic, and politicalof the individuals involved in the Dada movement and document the controversies within the movement and in response to it. ... Read more

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Richard Huelsenbeck's "Memoirs of a Dada Drummer"
This is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the progression of 20th century Art.Living in New York City late in his life, Richard Huelsenbeck - a seminal member of the original Dada group formed at Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire - looks back upon his role in Dada and Art (or rather"Anti-Art"), and tries to make some sense of it all.Though highly opinionated (especially in regards to the role of Tristan Tzara), he manages to objectively de-mystify much of the Dada legend and examine some of the human interactions and political and social motivations which sparked the birth of Dada.Low points include the incessant ¡°plugging¡± of his own work and his role in the birth of Dada, but this by no means overshadows his comments and observations about other ¡°Dadaists¡± or the importance of the movement as a whole. ... Read more

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"Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer's birthplace," writes Hans Richter, who was associated with the movement from its early days. Here, through selections from key manifestos and other documents of the time, he records Dada's history, from its beginnings in wartime Zurich to its collapse in the Paris of the 1920s. Dada led on from Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, and in turn prepared the way for Surrealism. It was enlivened by bizarre and extravagant personalities, notably Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, whose contributions are fully discussed. The spirit of Dada reappeared in the 1960s in movements such as Pop Art, which are surveyed in the final section. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A must-read to put on your dada to-do list...
Written as it was by an early dadaist, this book is as much a historical record of the movement as it is a primary source. As an artist, and an actual participant in the movement, Richter understands dada from the inside-out; he "gets it" in a way that the art historian or art critic cannot.

This book is a wonderful combination of autobiography, art theory, on-the-scene reportage, gossip column, and investigative reconstruction of the life and times of dada from someone who there--or near-there, or in contact with someone who was.

Richter's account of dada has no doubt been a text that subsequent accounts have leaned on for facts. But Richter gives more than just the names, dates, and places--he conveys something of the spirit of dada, but does so with a certain critical detachment, the result of the passing of decades and his own orderly turn of mind.

He writes, too, of Breton and the surrealists, who co-opted much of the best of what dada had been, while imposing upon it an unfortunate hierarchy of superstructure and orthodoxy of viewpoint. In this, as in all else, Richter does an admirable job of trying to maintain his objectivity, but he doesn't--nor should he have--completely suppressed his own judgments, including his rather scathing view of pop art and neo-dada, so-called.

Generously illustrated (mostly in black-and-white), filled with lively anecdotes and vivid portrayals of memorable characters, such as Schwitters, this is quite simply a must-have book for those interested in dada. And the more interested you are in dada, the more you must have it.

Both dada and this book.

Dada Lives!
Dada wasn't really an art movement.It was an intellectual cry for help, decrying the degradation of art in a mass society.As such, it embodied an idea - the revolt against form - that lives on to this day even though the movement died quickly largely because its governing idea ran out of oxygen to fuel its flame.

Hans Richter, a dadaist himself, was an eyewitness to the movement's creation in Zurich at the Cabaret Voltaire and he writes with the authority of an insider, conveying the excitement and tension of the moment but does little more than catalog the Dada moments, artifacts and personalities.The book does raise the question, was dada merely a protest against the atrocity of modern warfare or an actual movement?Richter delineates the various flare-ups of Dada culture in Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Paris and New York but fails to answer that question.And I have others.Were there ideas that animated these artists?Did they cluster around a particular aspect of dada revolt?If dada was just a protest, how come dada lives on so powerful as a cultural idea, retreaded and re-packaged but never expanded or exceeded?Only towards the end does Richter attempt sum up dada and that is only because he wants to elevate it above pop art and the other neo-dada movements that emerged in the sixties when his book was published and dada had new relevance.

Still, there are great prints throughout the book and Mr. Richter knew many of the personalities that with a word or sentence he can summon to life in way no outsider could.

it is not only possible to achieve something beautiful, but very easy
This is one of the most important books of my life, and I know for a fact that I am far from alone in this. Richter taught me that it is not only possible to achieve something beautiful, but very easy; you simply have to actually want to. It is the first book I recommend, lend, or give to a friend; Bradley Chriss keeps extra copies on hand for those who need to read it; Warren Fry and David Beris Edwards have both been deeply inspired by it. What I was officially `taught' concerning Dada, and what I took for accurate for many years, was essentially that it was the cheeky use of the Readymade, and was basically synonymous with Marcel Duchamp. When I finally realised that there may have been something to it that I had missed, a particular image recurred to me, one that had been flipped past for not more than five seconds in a slideshow several years earlier, a man inside a large awkward cardboard costume, looking like a cross between the Tin Man, a stovepipe, and a lobster, with a very earnest, very direct, and at the same time very lost look on his face. It was most certainly not Marcel Duchamp. And I decided that there must be something else, and that I needed to track it down. Going to the bookstore, Chance--which that day vouchsafed to me its devious kind of (Anti-)trustworthiness--led me to Hans Richter. Richter was, in many ways, the most grounded of the core Dada group; among the least `absurd', the least polemic, and most importantly in his later role as scribe of the movement, the least histrionic and least given to post-mortem internecine strife. He was also, and perhaps for these very reasons, perhaps the nicest. The result is that Dada: Art and Anti-Art is not, like Ball's history, one of otherworldly mysticism; like Huelsenbeck's, one of political upheaval and ideological combat; like Tzara's version, one of impersonal destruction of all personal and social guarantors of subjective comfort; like Duchamp's, one of formal innovation or `artistic' concerns. Richter's history is the history of a group of friends, some of whom had never personally met, who galvanized that friendship into a force that profoundly transformed hundreds of lives, made all of those other histories thinkable and achievable, and in the process established the groundwork for a programme of joyous, deep-seated social revolt upon which we are still attempting build new ways of living; and, as Richter shows, they did this simply by actually caring. The most essential thing to be gleaned from Art and Anti-Art is not anything unique to Dada, it is the realisation that the Institution has somehow managed to dupe us all into thinking that we need it; Richter, in his generous, humble, unassuming way, taught me that a `movement' is not something that one assembles like an army of ready-made Heroes to launch on the grand battleground of Art History; it is the experience of a few dedicated friends who love nothing more than what they are doing, finding other dedicated friends who all make each other into something none could have imagined on their own, until one day they all look around, realise with astonishment what has come into existence through them, and get back to what they love to do together, as that intangible thing that has evoked itself between them continues to grow.

Important
Takes a good look at the Dada artist's and their work. The author was involved in Dada and made many crucial Dada works. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that it talks about the relationships between the people involved in Dada, but doesn't stray to far from what is important...the original works.

Jackdaws Love My Big Sphinx Of Quartz
dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada mulberry dada dada dada dada dada dada
....lymph node....
dad dad dad dad dad dad dad dad dad
+a +a +a +a +a +a +a +a +a


merz ... Read more

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Originally published in 1928 and augmented throughout the author's life, Surrealism and Painting is the single most important statement ever written on Surrealist art. While many pages have been devoted to visual Surrealism, this is the only book on the suject by the movement's founder and prime theorist. It contains André Breton's seminal treatise on the origins and foundations of artistic Surrealism, with his trenchant assessments of its precursors and practitioners, and his call for the plastic arts to "refer to a purely internal model." Also included are essays--many of them classics in their own right--on Picasso, Duchamp, Kahlo, Dalí, Ernst, Masson, Gorky, Picabia, Miró, Magritte, Kandinsky, and others, as well as pieces on Gaulish art, outsider art, and the folk arts of Haiti and Oceania. But above and beyond the subject matter, what makes this book so enduringly compelling is Breton's signature mixture of rigorous erudition and visceral passion, his sense of adventure, and his discoveries of many of Modernism's most prominent figures early in their careers. Long unavailable in English, Surrealism and Painting is not only a supremely exciting work of art criticism, but also one of the three or four indispensable references for any serious discussion of modern art.

Artists Include: Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Andre Masson, Max Ernst,Yves Tanguy, Francis Picabia,Joan Miro, andRene Magritte amongts others

Introduction by Mark Polizzotti. ... Read more

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Pictures are black and white
Pictures are black and white. Paper quality is not good. Find and buy a color version. ... Read more

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This publication, the first devoted exclusively to The Museum of Modern Art's unrivaled Dada collection, features some seventy works-books, collages, drawings, films, paintings, photographs, photomontages, prints, readymades, and reliefs-in large reproductions accompanied by in-depth, object-focused essays by an interdepartmental group of the Museum's curators. Catalyzed by the major Dada exhibition that appeared in 2005 and 2006 in Paris and Washington, D.C. and at MoMA, the book benefits from new scholarship generated by the extraordinary opportunity the exhibition created for an international community of scholars to examine the Museum's objects beside those on loan from other institutions. The book's unique object-centered approach provides unparalleled access to the themes at the heart of this revolutionary movement. An illustrated essay by Anne Umland, Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum, traces MoMA's history of collecting, exhibiting, and publishing Dada work; it is complemented by a detailed chronology. Dada in theCollection of The Museum of Modern Art is the ninth volume of Studies in Modern Art, the Museum's publication series devoted to scholarly research on its collection ... Read more