SURREALISM AND THE OBJECT - Centre Pompidou

SURREALISM ANDTHE OBJECT30 OCTOBER 2013 - 3 MARCH 2014Surrealism occupies a singular placein the history of the 20th century avantgarde because of its internationalinfluence and longevity. With”Le Surréalisme et l'objet“, the firstlarge-scale exhibition dedicated toSurrealist sculpture, the CentrePompidou invites visitors to see themovement in a new light. From MarcelDuchamps's readymades to Miró'ssculptures of the late 1960s, theexhibition retraces the various stagesin the story of the Surrealist”challenge“ to sculpture through theuse of everyday objects.When it was founded in 1924,Surrealism's very name expressed itsaim of surpassing the real. In hisfounding Manifesto, André Bretoncalled for a primarily tributary creationof an ”interior model“, where dreams,the subconscious and automatism increation inspired a poetry designed todeny reality and throw it into turmoil.A second chapter in the history ofSurrealism began in 1927 when itsmost active members joined theFrench Communist Party.The Surrealists' commitment to thispolitical ideology implied absorbing thereality that formed the theoreticaland philosophical heart ofCommunism. Breton then called onSurrealists to found a ”physics ofpoetry“. The Surrealist object assertedthis enduring consideration of reality.In militant Surrealism, it appeared asthe obvious response to this newpolitical and philosophical context.Through more than 200 works, theexhibition highlights key momentsin this way of thinking, and its fertileposterity in contemporary art.www.centrepompidou.fr

READY-MADES AND MANNEQUINSALBERTO GIACOMETTITen years before the creation of Surrealism,in 1914, Giorgio De Chirico and Marcel Duchampinvented two objects that were to gain enduringcurrency in the imagination of the movement.The former introduced the image of themannequin into his painting; the latter bought thebottle rack that became his first ready-made.From Hans Bellmer's Doll (1933-1934) to thedummies lining the “streets” of the 1938“International Exhibition of Surrealism”,mannequins made a regular appearance inSurrealist events. The Manifesto of 1924presented the mannequin as one of the mostpropitious objects for producing the “marvellous”sought by Surrealism, and for arousing the senseof “the uncanny” inspired in Sigmund Freud by hisdiscovery of a doll in a tale by Hoffmann. In 1938,the Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme [shorterdictionary of Surrealism] made Duchamp's readymade an “object raised to the dignity of a work ofart by the artist's will alone”: the prototype ofa Surrealist object crystallising the dreams anddesires of its “inventor”. (room 1)In the late Twenties, Alberto Giacometti joined thecircle formed around the journal Documents,founded by primitive art historian Carl Einsteinand the philosopher Georges Bataille. His worksthen took on violent, sacrificial themes, typical ofthe direction Bataille gave to his review. His latestsculptures, shown in the spring of 1930 at thePierre Loeb gallery, impressed André Breton,who proposed that he join the Surrealists.Giacometti took part in the group's events until1935, producing object-sculptures inspired by the”interior model“ Breton enjoined the artists of thegroup to submit to: ”For years, I only producedthe sculptures that came to my mind fullyfledged, and I limited myself to reproducing themin space, without changing anything.“ (room 3)OBJECTS WITH A SYMBOLICFUNCTIONDalí gave an initial definition to what he called”Objects with a symbolic function“ inLe Surréalisme au service de la révolution en 1931:”These objects, which lend themselves to aminimum of mechanical functioning, are basedon the fantasies and representations that canarise from the performance of subconscious acts.[ ] Objects with a symbolic function leave noplace at all for formal preoccupations. Theydepend only on the amorous imagination of eachperson, and are extraplastic.“ Through its latenteroticism and form, more like a children's toythan traditional sculpture, Alberto Giacometti'sSuspended Ball, discovered by Salvador Dalí andAndré Breton in the Pierre Loeb Gallery in 1930,prefigured this definition. (room 2)THE DOLLIn the mid-Twenties, Hans Bellmer approachedLotte Pritzel, a wax doll-maker, who a few yearsearlier had been asked by the Viennese painterOskar Kokoschka to make a dummy as asubstitute for Alma Mahler when she ended theirrelationship. At the beginning of the Thirties,a series of events led Bellmer to start work on hisown Doll. In the winter of 1932, his mother senthim a case full of his childhood toys, includingsome dolls with disjointed members. At the timewhen Bellmer was moving closer to GeorgeGrosz, the painter of Dadaist automatons, hediscovered the doll Olympia in Offenbach's operabased on the Tales of Hoffmann (The Sandman),which brought Kokoschka's ”fetish“ to mind.He made his first doll, staging it in photographsthat were then reproduced in the journalMinotaure in December 1934. A crucial landmarkin Surrealist ”mannequinerie“, Bellmer's Doll wasimbued with the erotic dimension associated withthese female effigies, from the myth of Pygmalionto modern silicone dolls. (room 4)

FOUND OBJECTS / ”EXPOSITIONINTERNATIONALE DUSURRÉALISME“, 1933In the 1933 exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery,Surrealism affirmed the place now occupied bythe object in the Surrealist imagination. TristanTzara rewrote the preface of the catalogueaccompanying the exhibition: ”Unpleasantobjects, chairs, drawings, sexes, paintings,manuscripts, objects to sniff, automatic andunmentionable objects, wood, plasters, phobias,memories from the womb, elements of propheticdreams, dematerialisations of desires [ ] Do youstill remember that time when painting wasconsidered “an end in itself”? We have moved onfrom the period of individual exercises. [ ] Timepasses. Through the emotional characters ofyour meetings. Through the experimentalexplorations of Surrealism. We don't want tobuild any more arks. As sincere partisans of thebetter, we have tried, physically and morally, toembellish the face of Paris a little. By turning ourbacks on paintings.[ ]“ (rooms 5 and 6)”EXPOSITION SURRÉALISTED’OBJETS“, 1936The ”Surrealist Exhibition of Objects“, shown atthe Charles Ratton Gallery in May 1936, wasdedicated to the quintessence of a Surrealismwith the ability to transfigure and transmuteobjects, and thereby reality itself. A far cry fromany expertise or ”artistic genius“, the power ofthe designation ”Surrealist“ was the very subjectof the exhibition. A high point in Surrealistthinking applied to the object, it was a kind ofapogee of a Surrealism expressed in itssimultaneously poetic and theoretical purity. Inthe showcase and on the walls, there was little orno sign of the know-how or talent valued by thebourgeois aesthetic. Ready-mades temporarilyremoved from their functional anonymity, theseobjects defied all speculation or fetishism – likeRené Magritte's Ceci n’est pas un morceau defromage, which was taken to pieces at the end ofthe exhibition, restoring the cheese cover to itsoriginal use. (room 7)”EXPOSITION INTERNATIONALEDU SURRÉALISME“, 1938The contestation of the traditional work of art,and the aim of inscribing Surrealism in theconcrete world, as witness the proliferation ofobjects, was also expressed by the conquest ofreal space. This took the form of stagingSurrealist exhibitions in a way that heralded theart of the ”installation“. Marcel Duchamp,enthroned as ”generator/arbiter“ of the 1938”International Exhibition of Surrealism“ at theGalerie des Beaux-Arts, was in charge of theexhibition set and stage design. Each of thesixteen participants was invited to ”dress“ amannequin taken from a department storewindow. These mannequins formed a line oneither side of the Surrealist Street greeting thevisitors. (room 8)SURREALISM IN EXILE:THE OBJECT AS A CHALLENGETO SCULPTUREThe Second World War drove the Surrealists intoexile. André Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson,Roberto Matta, Yves Tanguy and others moved tothe United States. The Forties and the years thatfollowed saw the appearance of a new generationof sculptures, where the ordinary, everyday objectbecame the basic material in assemblagesconstructed along the lines of the ”cadavreexquis“ (the free juxtaposition of disparateelements). Max Ernst produced anthropomorphiccreatures by assembling plaster moulds ofdomestic objects (bowls, plates and the like).Alexander Calder's meeting with Joan Miró in1932 had led him to widen his formal vocabularyto a register inspired by plants and animals.Apple Monster, 1938, made from apple treebranches collected near his studio, humorouslyevokes the Surrealists' fascination withmonsters. With Bull's Head, 1942, resulting fromthe assemblage of a bicycle saddle andhandlebars, Pablo Picasso was one of the keyprotagonists of this process. (room 9)