Surrealist Objects

In the Gallery 2001 are some Surrealist objects created for the class by the class--Magical Realism, 2001.  The challenge was to create, in the manner of the Surrealists, juxtapositions of wildly dissimilar things in order to create a third reality, a surreality--as in Lautremont's description of the chance meeting of the parasol and the sewing machine on the operating table.

An additional option was the negation of the regular, what the Russian formalists called "defamiliarization."  Some good examples are Man Ray's "The Gift," a flatiron studded with nails and Meret Oppenheimer's "Object," which was a fur-lined teacup.

May Ray, The Gift (Cadeau) 1926

Man Ray, The Gift (Cadeau) 1921

Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur Tea

The music for these pages is by Erik Satie.  Revered by the Surrealists, and a member of the gang, he composed radically new works beginning in the later 1800s and into the early 1900s.  He was often the High Judge of the Surrealist "courts."  The music for this page is: "Sonatina Bureaucratique," composed in 1917.

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Last modified on:
Wednesday, October 10, 2001

Site created 9-27-01