Surrealism is widely thought of as an artistic movement that flourished in Europe between the two world wars. However, during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, diverse radical affinity groups, underground subcultures, and student protest movements proclaimed their connections to surrealism. Radical Dreams argues that surrealism was more than an avant-garde art movement; it was a living current of radicalism. Featuring perspectives from scholars across the humanities and, distinctively, from contemporary surrealist practitioners, this volume examines surrealism's role in postwar radical and resistance cultures. It demonstrates how surrealism's committed engagement extends beyond the parameters of an artistic style or historical period, with chapters devoted to Afrosurrealism, Ted Joans, punk, the Situationist International, the student protests of May '68, and other radical counterculture and resistance subcultures. Privileging interdisciplinary, transhistorical, and material culture approaches, contributors address surrealism's interaction with New Left politics, protest movements, the sexual revolution, and psychedelic and other subcultural trends around the globe. A revelatory work, Radical Dreams definitively shows that the surrealist movement was synonymous with cultural and political radicalism. It will be especially valuable to those interested in the avant-garde, contemporary art, and radical social movements. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, Jonathan P. Eburne, David Hopkins, Claire Howard, Michael Loewy, Alyce Mahon, Gavin Parkinson, Gregory Pierrot, Penelope Rosemont, Ron Sakolsky, Marie Arleth Skov, Ryan Standfest, and Sandra Zalman.
Elliot H. King is Associate Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University and the author of Salvador Dali: The Late Work and Dali, Surrealism, and Cinema. He is a founding board member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism. Abigail Susik is Associate Professor of Art History at Willamette University and the author of Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work. She is also a founding board member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introductory Essays Surrealism as Radicalism Abigail Susik and Elliot H. King Surrealism and Revolutionary Romanticism in May '68 Michael Loewy Part 1: Surrealist Solidarity 1. "Down with Art, Up with Revolution": Protesting Dada and Surrealism in 1968 Sandra Zalman 2. Ted Joans, the Other Jones: Jazz Poet, Black Power Missionary, and Surrealist Interpreter Gregory Pierrot 3. Angry, Hopeful Chaos an the Great Secret of Surrealism: Unraveling the Tangled Web of the 1970s Penelope Rosemont Part 2: Against the Liquidators 4. Passionate Attraction: Fourier, Feminism, Free Love, and L'Ecart absolu Claire Howard 5. "To Be a Painter Means to Oppose": Exhibiting and Politicizing Robert Rauschenberg, 1959-1965 Gavin Parkinson 6. A Consciousness of Being: Burn, Baby, Burn and the Political Art of Roberto Matta Alyce Mahon Part 3: The Right to Insubordination 7. The Fantasy of a Powerful Myth: The Situationist International After Surrealism Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen 8. Afrosurrealism as a Counterculture of Modernity Jonathan P. Eburne 9. The Surrealist Adventure and the Poetry of Direct Action: Passionate Encounters Between the Chicago Surrealist Group, the Wobblies, and Earth First! Ron Sakolsky Part 4: Passional Attractions 10. A Useful Bile: Andre Breton's Humour Noir in 1960s America Ryan Standfest 11. Oz Magazine and British Counterculture: A Case Study in the Reception of Surrealism David Hopkins 12. Surrealism and Punk: The Case of COUM Transmissions Marie Arleth Skov List of Contributors Index
